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Running engines when moored "out of hours" #2 - The CRT view.


Neil2

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1 hour ago, MtB said:


which loops us back to the questions i asked upthread. Who enforces bylaws, and if it is CRT, is there any way to make CRT use and apply them? 
 

Nobody seems to know the answer. 

I'm pretty sure that nobody can force CART to enforce the bylaws, especially if there is no effective sanction they can apply to the offenders. In the end it comes down to what is effectively antisocial behaviour by some people who just don't care, and if there's no usable legal way to make them stop then the only thing that might work is to retaliate by doing something which they don't like -- but isn't illegal, unlike GBH. Bear in mind that any action by an individual may not work and may lead to further retaliation by the offender...

 

You could -- for example -- make a recording of their generator noise on your phone, and play it back to them loudly through a portable PA system every time they run their genny out of hours. If this then (rightly) annoys other boaters nearby, point out to them that you're not the one causing the problem you're the one trying to fix it. It's easy for the offender to ignore one irate boater, it's harder for them to ignore several...

 

https://www.gear4music.com/PA-DJ-and-Lighting/SubZero-SZPA-P12-Portable-PA-with-Bluetooth-and-Wireless-Mics/21D5

 

If people aren't willing to do anything, their only option is to move away -- which is at least possible on a boat, but effectively means that the inconsiderate tw*ts have won, which will simply encourage more people to do exactly the same on the "I'm all right Jack" principle.

 

Unfortunately this attitude seems to becoming more and more prevalent nowadays, as can be seen by some postings on this forum -- basically "Sod you, I'm going to do what I want regardless of the effect on others, because nobody can stop me" 😞

Edited by IanD
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All this kerfuffle about laws is irrelevant to the original point of the thread, which is about controlling antisocial behaviour. It's blatantly obvious that this cannot be done via the legal system, or there would be no out of control dogs, noisy parties or cycling on pavements.

These are social problems and have to be controlled by social pressure. The law is based on the protection of property, not to give you what you personally, as opposed to others, define as a pleasant life. Social norms are a consensus of what is largely acceptable.

As is plain from  previous pages, almost everyone thinks it's fine to run their own engine outside normal hours if they consider it necessary, or if, in their opinion, no one else is within earshot, while arguing passionately that it's wrong for anyone else to do it. While this is obviously hypocritical, it was bound to happen when people started having huge battery banks and big electric demands. Times change and maybe the 8-8 rule/guidline is as outmoded as the canal system itself.

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25 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

All this kerfuffle about laws is irrelevant to the original point of the thread, which is about controlling antisocial behaviour. It's blatantly obvious that this cannot be done via the legal system, or there would be no out of control dogs, noisy parties or cycling on pavements.

These are social problems and have to be controlled by social pressure. The law is based on the protection of property, not to give you what you personally, as opposed to others, define as a pleasant life. Social norms are a consensus of what is largely acceptable.

As is plain from  previous pages, almost everyone thinks it's fine to run their own engine outside normal hours if they consider it necessary, or if, in their opinion, no one else is within earshot, while arguing passionately that it's wrong for anyone else to do it. While this is obviously hypocritical, it was bound to happen when people started having huge battery banks and big electric demands. Times change and maybe the 8-8 rule/guidline is as outmoded as the canal system itself.

Isn't the "nobody else within earshot" allowed by the CART T&Cs?

 

I'm not convinced that big batteries/electric demands are really the problem, plenty of people with these manage not to run gennys out of hours. The real problem is the number of people on the canals who don't care about the canal community or other people, just themselves, and I suspect many of these are the newcomers only doing it for cheap accommodation.

 

You'd have thought that the same rules about noise pollution should apply to both boats and houses, but then of cause these are rarely enforced in either case -- try getting the police or local council involved for noisy neighbours, they're not interested unless the infringements are blatant and go on for a long period of time, and even then it's difficult to get anything done. The problem with antisocial boaters is that they (or the people they're annoying) often move on, so it's probably impossible for any one complainant to provide the evidence needed to make any enforcement claim stick.

 

Antisocial behaviour only stops when people are forced to by either legal means or strong pressure from society, if they just don't care then one individual complaining to them is hardly going to make them change their mind.

 

So in the end the only thing that might work would be a simple reporting system to CART about offending boaters, and them to take some action if they get repeated complaints about the same boat -- and the action has to have teeth or it'll just be ignored. I'm sure a suitable sanction could be found (e.g. BSS/license-related) if CART wanted to, but they're not going to bother (or set up a noise reporting system) unless they're put under pressure from enough annoyed boaters.

Edited by IanD
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2 minutes ago, Goliath said:


It’s the breaking of a rule that really irks folk. 
Not so much the sound of an engine. 
 

Take away the rules and we could live quite happily. 
 

 

 

Well that's not true.

 

I enjoy peace and quiet.  I'd prefer no engines running after 6pm.  I'll accept that 8pm helps for people if they need to run their engine after getting home from work.  But I'm very glad to not have to listen to engines late into the evening.

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Genuine question.

 

Is it not possible to involve the local authority if a noise nuisance is being created?

 

Or do they have no authority or jurisdriction what so ever if the problem originates from a boat, on a waterway.

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1 hour ago, Sir Nibble said:

Nice of you to propose a solution but I don't think you have authority to declare abuse of the law "acceptable", nor to judge who does or does not "deserve it". 

 

No, exactly, and  think you've failed to grasp my point. Abuse of the law isn't acceptable and it shouldn't be tolerated by anyone who has half an ounce of common sense, regardless of how much they feel the person on the receiving end deserves it.

On second reading, I've probably misinterpreted your post. I thought it was inferring that 'the enemy' are the boaters running generators, and as such condoning CRT's flagrant misrepresentation(s) of the law.

1 hour ago, Arthur Marshall said:

This does seem to be the accepted position of most of the population


Does that make it right?

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1 hour ago, The Happy Nomad said:

 

Is it not possible to involve the local authority if a noise nuisance is being created?

Yes, in theory. But in practice with limited resources a local authority is more likely to take action against a 'fixed' nuisance, such as a noisy factory or a house having loud parties every week, than against a mobile nuisance, such as a boat (even if that boat rarely moves).

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1 hour ago, David Mack said:

Yes, in theory. But in practice with limited resources a local authority is more likely to take action against a 'fixed' nuisance, such as a noisy factory or a house having loud parties every week, than against a mobile nuisance, such as a boat (even if that boat rarely moves).

The local authority will fob you off until you give up,  so will the police. As far as they're concerned, the problem is the complaints and when they stop the problem is solved. 

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1 hour ago, Sir Nibble said:

The local authority will fob you off until you give up,  so will the police. As far as they're concerned, the problem is the complaints and when they stop the problem is solved. 

 

Well the previous owners of my rescue GSD shut him in the garden permanently, where he barked so much that the neighbours complained to the council's Environmental Health Officer.

 

After the EHO had satisfied himself that the nuisance was real, he issued a noise abatement notice giving the dogs owners 30 days to resolve the issue or to have him put down.

 

They chose to re-home him and that is how we got to have him.

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59 minutes ago, cuthound said:

 

Well the previous owners of my rescue GSD shut him in the garden permanently, where he barked so much that the neighbours complained to the council's Environmental Health Officer.

 

After the EHO had satisfied himself that the nuisance was real, he issued a noise abatement notice giving the dogs owners 30 days to resolve the issue or to have him put down.

 

They chose to re-home him and that is how we got to have him.

Well done. I think poison is the more usual solution so having environmental health do their job is a good result. 

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3 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

Well the previous owners of my rescue GSD shut him in the garden permanently, where he barked so much that the neighbours complained to the council's Environmental Health Officer.

 

After the EHO had satisfied himself that the nuisance was real, he issued a noise abatement notice giving the dogs owners 30 days to resolve the issue or to have him put down.

 

They chose to re-home him and that is how we got to have him.

 

I think boaters who run gennies at night ought to be re-homed by the local authorities. 

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4 hours ago, cuthound said:

 

Well the previous owners of my rescue GSD shut him in the garden permanently, where he barked so much that the neighbours complained to the council's Environmental Health Officer.

 

After the EHO had satisfied himself that the nuisance was real, he issued a noise abatement notice giving the dogs owners 30 days to resolve the issue or to have him put down.

 

They chose to re-home him and that is how we got to have him.

 

Indeed. Local authorities WILL act but you have to be persistent as a complainant.

 

We know from experience, unfortunately our neighbours dont speak to us any longer but its no great loss and their dogs no longer get left out barking.

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The problem with reporting noise nuisance from boats to the Council is that a noise abatement notice has to specific the source of the nuisance and that source must be a fixed place.  So even if the Council did serve a notice on a noisy boat, the notice would become instantly invalid once the boat moved 100m up the cut.  Council Environmental Health bods know this, which is why they don't waste time and money serving notices to boats.  It's possible you might have more luck going down the ASBO route since this covers things like boy-racers revving their engines.

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7 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

The problem with reporting noise nuisance from boats to the Council is that a noise abatement notice has to specific the source of the nuisance and that source must be a fixed place.  So even if the Council did serve a notice on a noisy boat, the notice would become instantly invalid once the boat moved 100m up the cut.  Council Environmental Health bods know this, which is why they don't waste time and money serving notices to boats.  It's possible you might have more luck going down the ASBO route since this covers things like boy-racers revving their engines.

 

...or man-boaters revving their generators? 😉

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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Its called the M25, everything inside it is a "boating slum".

 

I disagree, the Basingstoke Canal, River Wey Navigation and parts of the Thames within the M25 are nothing like slums (but you knew that anyway didn't you...). 😉

Edited by cuthound
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On 19/09/2021 at 16:51, Alan de Enfield said:

 

It is not easy for them to add conditions to be met before a licence can be issued, In fact, Nigel Moore said it was not possible unless the changes were agreed by Parlaiment.

 

The BSS is already a condition of licence, but there is nothing to say what the BSS must consist of. Adding extra restrictions / conditions to the issue of the BSS is 'legal' and simple.

 

Remember that C&RT / BW agreed that there are only 3 conditions that must be met for the issue of a licence :

 

Again an old post by Nigel Moore (RIP)

 

 

The comments by the previous Waterways Ombudsman are very much to the point in this respect – “British Waterways themselves can sometimes interpret legislation in different ways depending on what suits them in a particular case”. [page 16 of her 2010-2011 Report]

 

http://www.waterways-ombudsman.org/media/1016/annualreports201to11final.pdf

 

CaRT’s submissions to the Mayor of London’s Report on mooring problems in London contains the accurate admission: “People enjoy the right to put a boat on our waterways, providing that they pay the necessary fee, that the boat meets safety standards and has insurance cover for third party liabilities – and that, unless it is used ‘bona fide’ for navigation throughout the period of consent, it must have a home mooring (somewhere where the boat ‘can lawfully be kept when not being used for navigation’2 ).”

 

 

https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/gla_migrate_files_destination/Combined responses_Part1_0.pdf  [see page 10]

This was more explicitly enunciated in  CaRT’s “Overview of statutory framework”, page 6, which acknowledges clearly enough:  –

“The British Waterways Act 1995 limits to three specific criteria our ability to refuse to licence a boat.”   [my emphasis]

 

https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/library/1127.pdf

 

They go on, however, in their submission to the GLA, to inaccurately claim [in effective contradiction of the above quoted public statement] that revocation of the licence with subsequent s.8 removal “is the only sanction available to us in respect of a breach in licence terms.” [page 12 of the GLA Report pack on Responses in the link above] Insofar as any breach of non-statutory terms can naturally have no sanction applicable, this would explain the s.8 process chosen - albeit with no legal justification whatsoever - while any breach of approved byelaws etc contains within the legislation the accompanying legislated sanction – which does NOT include revocation of a licence. If a sanction is not legislated for, then the claimed legal outrage does not exist and such T&C’s are – as acknowledged to Parliament by BW in the debates over the 1990 Bill – mere guidance without the force of law.

Revoking a licence can only be enabled upon breach of the s.17 conditions, exactly as, admitted by them above, refusing a licence can only be enabled by failure to meet those conditions.

In short, where the 1995 Act has expressly limited grounds for refusal/revocation of a licence to 3 specific conditions, then the issue of the licence CANNOT legally be subjected to compliance with anything else.

 

Where, under byelaw making powers passed on to CaRT by the terms of their Statutory Instrument, conditions of use of the waterways by licensed boats may still be added to, the relevant statutory procedure must be followed – but those, as with existing byelaws, could only govern use of the waterways by licensed boats, they could never be tied to issue or revocation of the licence. Any attempt to portray them as something issue and retention of the licence is subject to, is blatant falsehood.

 

The law quite simply does NOT permit T&C’s to be attached to issue of the licence, therefore the asserted contrary statements and actions are indeed unlawful. When elements of these T&C’s specifically claim to over-ride express statutory protections and prohibitions, the legal affront is all the more objectionable.

In Para 14.7 of the Mayor of London document CRT claims they can refuse a licence renewal if fines or charges are not paid, this is totally false.

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6 hours ago, waterworks said:

In Para 14.7 of the Mayor of London document CRT claims they can refuse a licence renewal if fines or charges are not paid, this is totally false.

 

Yes - I know.

 

As per the document I previously attached : C&RTs QC said that if the 3 conditions were met (4 if you include payment) then C&RT could not refuse to issue a licence.

 

They can immediately rescind it for 'non-compliance' or 'not satisfying the board', but upon application would again have to issue it if the 3 conditions were met.

This is why C&RT generally 'section 8 boats' by rescinding their licence and then taking them to court because they have no licence. Far easier than trying to prosecute them for some 'trumped up offence'.

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10 hours ago, waterworks said:

In Para 14.7 of the Mayor of London document CRT claims they can refuse a licence renewal if fines or charges are not paid, this is totally false.

False-ish. If a boat has been fined for overstaying, as it now can be in certain places, then presumably the board would argue that it is not satisfied the boat is continuously cruising, and that nonpayment of the fine shows lack of contrition and intention to re-offend. End of argument. Much the same if licences haven't been paid for.

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