Enough is enough!

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

Nothing magical about it. In a company the profit is available to be distributed amongst the shareholders. When a charity makes a 'profit', it is called a surplus because there are no shareholders entitled to a share of the profit, and the surplus therefore has to remain on the charity's balance sheet. 

 

Basic accountancy.

i thought magician and accountant were the same?

[Drayke]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

Ever so slightly...

 

And nothing like as much as they would if they were charged proportionally for the amount of canal they take up! 

 

So how would it work then with the narrowboats that tow these sheds, sorry dinghies behind them filled with all sorts of rubbish.

[MtB]

Just now, Alan de Enfield said:

Mine was a 20% add-on.

 

Your 23ft wide boat pays 20% more than a 7ft wide boat the same length? 

 

Iniquitous!!! You should pay three times the price! 

 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

5 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Your 23ft wide boat pays 20% more than a 7ft wide boat the same length? 

 

Iniquitous!!! You should pay three times the price! 

 

phew , you do have a sense of humour.  🙏🏻 
 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

5 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Your 23ft wide boat pays 20% more than a 7ft wide boat the same length? 

 

Iniquitous!!! You should pay three times the price! 

 

 

Don't be silly, 23 foot wide and 70 feet fixed air-draft doesn't quite fit on many of the canals.

 

My 14 foot beam with very restricted canal access is the one with the 20% surcharge (yes it should be 2x the price of a 7' NB). but then a 50% discount for being unable to access 50% of the waterways

[MtB]

1 minute ago, Goliath said:

phew , you do have a sense of humour.  🙏🏻 
 

 

I do! 

 

I particularly liked Starmer's joke in his speech today where he said he wssn't posh, his father was a toolmaker. But then on reflection, perhaps so was Boris Johnson's. :D:D:D

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Don't be silly, 23 foot wide and 70 feet fixed air-draft doesn't quite fit on many of the canals.

 

My 14 foot beam with very restricted canal access is the one with the 20% surcharge (yes it should be 2x the price of a 7' NB). but then a 50% discount for being unable to access 50% of the waterways

 

And therefore 100% surcharge for using the ones you can access, twice as much as everyone else. 

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

I do! 

 

I particularly liked Starmer's joke in his speech today where he said he wssn't posh, his father was a toolmaker. But then on reflection, perhaps so was Boris Johnson's. :D:D:D

 

And therefore 100% surcharge for using the ones you can access, twice as much as everyone else. 

 

Sounds eminenty fair, but even better, I have moved to waters with no BSS, no insurance requirement and no licence required

[peterboat]

8 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

I do! 

 

I particularly liked Starmer's joke in his speech today where he said he wssn't posh, his father was a toolmaker. But then on reflection, perhaps so was Boris Johnson's. :D:D:D

 

And therefore 100% surcharge for using the ones you can access, twice as much as everyone else. 

I think that narrowboats should stay on narrow canals and widebeams on wide canals and rivers! We then pay a normal license very fair as far as I can see

[MtB]

9 minutes ago, peterboat said:

I think that narrowboats should stay on narrow canals and widebeams on wide canals and rivers! We then pay a normal license very fair as far as I can see

 

Excellent so all the widebeams get cleared off the GU, BRILLIANT! 

 

[TheBiscuits]

7 hours ago, MtB said:

 

Excellent so all the widebeams get cleared off the GU, BRILLIANT! 

 

 

Won't it get quite full with all those narrow boats that get cleared off the K&A though? 

[peterboat]

11 hours ago, MtB said:

 

Excellent so all the widebeams get cleared off the GU, BRILLIANT! 

 

Big locks when it was converted for widebeams so it's for fatties not thinies. I think Birmingham is going to get full along with a few more areas 

Edited September 30, 2021 by peterboat

[MtB]

Just now, peterboat said:

Big locks when it was converted for widebeams so it's for fatties not thinies

 

We've been through this so many times already. This is simply not true. 

 

Only the locks were widened, in order to accept narrowboats in pairs. The pounds between the locks were never widened to suit widebeam traffic.

[Philip]

16 hours ago, MtB said:

I think licenses should be put up to £5,000 a year per boat as that is broadly what the canal system needs spending on it to keep it working. 

 

The root problem is a serious disconnect between the huge cost of maintaining the canals and trivial sums CRT charge boaters pay to use them. 

 

Any increase would have to be based per the length (per foot). It wouldn't be fair for someone with a 30ft boat to be paying the same license cost as someone with a 60ft boat. So if £5000 is the starting point, those with a long boat would be paying around £10000...probably enough to push most people away who aren't rich...

Edited September 30, 2021 by Philip

[Ex Brummie]

13 hours ago, peterboat said:

I suspect that if the cost went up to 3k half the boats would be gone in the first year, so the next year the license would double so another half would go! See where this is heading?😱

I think no boats would go, they just wouldn't licence, so the extra revenue from those who pay would go towards the additional cost of enforcement.

[Philip]

14 hours ago, Tracy D'arth said:

 

 

I like a drink as much as many, I cannot drink in pubs though because they are full of lonely idiots who have low social standards.

 

That's very judgemental and quite crass, you're in no place to presume or comment as you have done on why someone might be drinking or eating by themselves in a pub. 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Philip

[Captain Pegg]

32 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

We've been through this so many times already. This is simply not true. 

 

Only the locks were widened, in order to accept narrowboats in pairs. The pounds between the locks were never widened to suit widebeam traffic.

 

It's no less true than what you say.

 

The majority of the Grand Union is formed from the former Grand Junction Canal which was a wide beam canal from construction and along which wide boats were operating from Brentford to Braunston prior to it's amalgamation into the Grand Union company.

 

The narrow Napton & Warwick and Warwick & Birmingham canals were widened following their purchase by the Grand Union company but the work was not fully completed. However most of the canal - locks and pounds but not all bridges - was modernised. This is evident from the works undertaken in concrete. Very little of these canals was not provided with new concrete wash walls to a specified width and depth. Additionally the Grand Union company were allowed to undertake improvements at their own cost to the Oxford company's line between Braunston and Napton; these are most evident around the bridges under the A425. This section however was not upgraded to the same extent as the GUCC owned sections further north.

 

As for the boats that operated on this section Leslie Morton - the founder of the Grand Union Canal Carrying Company -  is quoted by David Blagrove as saying (in 1962) that the GUCCCo only bought narrowboats as a "stop-gap".

 

There shouldn't be any doubt that the intention was to create a wide-beam trade route, it just never happened.

[peterboat]

34 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

We've been through this so many times already. This is simply not true. 

 

Only the locks were widened, in order to accept narrowboats in pairs. The pounds between the locks were never widened to suit widebeam traffic.

What Capt Pegg says so fatties have it 😊

[Tony1]

16 hours ago, MtB said:

I think licenses should be put up to £5,000 a year per boat as that is broadly what the canal system needs spending on it to keep it working. 

 

The root problem is a serious disconnect between the huge cost of maintaining the canals and trivial sums CRT charge boaters pay to use them. 

 

I agree with your general point about the cost of boat licenses not covering the much greater cost of maintaining the infrastructure that boaters in particular need. I'm thinking about things like locks, elsans, etc, that many users - anglers or walkers for example- don't need. 

 

But I think there may be a snag, in that as the license cost goes up, the number of people willing or able to pay it will decrease- so you will sell fewer licenses. 

I suspect it would not be a directly proportional thing- by which I mean, if you doubled the license fee, you would not drive off away half of the boat owners. 

 

But if the license fee really did go up towards the approximate level that you estimate would actually meet the costs (around £5,000?), that would cause a huge drop in boat numbers, surely?

At a wild guess I reckon you could lose 50% of the boats, so in reality you only get enough money to cover half the costs. 

 

I wonder if CRT are looking at this sort of idea, and trying to estimate if there is a sweet spot that maximises their revenue.....

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

I agree with your general point about the cost of boat licenses not covering the much greater cost of maintaining the infrastructure that boaters in particular need. I'm thinking about things like locks, elsans, etc, that many users - anglers or walkers for example- don't need. 

 

But .......... with only 50% of the boats there would be far less demand on water resources, less wear & tear on the infrastructure (lock cycles etc) and less C&RT staff needed to manage the 50% less licences etc.

 

Win-Win all around.

[Captain Pegg]

24 minutes ago, peterboat said:

What Capt Pegg says so fatties have it 😊

 

I've travelled the entire length from Brentford to Birmingham this summer and I haven't experienced any issues with moored wide beams above and beyond what I might expect with narrow boats on narrow canals. Any problems I encountered were with moving craft and they weren't totally confined to wide beams. There are just a lot of boats on the GU that don't really want to move and that's evident in the way they are navigated by under-sized, under-competent and under-enthusiastic crew and very often with an under-functioning engine. 

 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Captain Pegg

[MtB]

15 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

But I think there may be a snag, in that as the license cost goes up, the number of people willing or able to pay it will decrease- so you will sell fewer licenses. 

 

In what way would that be a snag? The number of £200k new boats being launched every week illustrates just how many people find the license fee so very very affordable and the filling up of the canal system with these huge boats is very much a Bad Thing. Stemming would be a most welcome side-effect of massively raising license fees. If that means a few knackered old rust-buckets finally get scrapped this would be a Good Thing too.  

Edited September 30, 2021 by MtB
Spelling

[Mike Todd]

17 hours ago, Midnight said:

With yet another major structural failure on the Leeds & Liverpool Canal followed swiftly by two further stoppages on the L&L and Huddersfield Narrow the Northern reaches have become a virtual no-go area. C&RT are a disaster but we are stuck with them for the time being. They seem incapable of finding a sustainable solution and it's very likely things will get even worse in the North over the next few years. There's no doubt there is a shortage of cash and management failures like Toddbrook and the Aire & Calder haven't helped.

 

Maybe it's time for a radical rethink? The three Pennine Canals are very expensive to maintain so maybe it's time to consider mothballing the Hudderfield and Rochdale canals and put the resources into an attempt to keep the Leeds and Liverpool open. Horrific solution but let's be honest how many boaters have any faith in crossing the Pennines under this disaster of a navigation authority. 

I doubt that it is about being 'stuck' with CaRT - any replacement would still be required to work within the same funding parameters. The problem, and it is unlikely to go away any day soon, is the lack of willingness of the Great British Public to put money into the system. 

 

In addition, it is highly likely that any change to CaRT will, as with the shift away from BW, be an excuse tor educe even further the public funding leaving us with the prospect of either having to put up with a decaying 18C system or ourselves, as users, paying the full cost of maintaining the network. Depending on the price elasticity of demand, that might not even be an option as hiking the prices to a fully costed model might well lead to a catastrophic erosion of customer numbers and, overall a reduction in income.

 

Any organisation has its faults and holding them to account is important but we should always keep an eye on doing in a way that leads to improvement not a bunker mentality.

 

Beware of what you ask for!

12 hours ago, Goliath said:

i thought magician and accountant were the same?

Not always true - there are contexts where you can compare the two models and look at salaries. See where that 'surplus' goes.

[Tracy D'arth]

18 minutes ago, Tony1 said:

 

I agree with your general point about the cost of boat licenses not covering the much greater cost of maintaining the infrastructure that boaters in particular need. I'm thinking about things like locks, elsans, etc, that many users - anglers or walkers for example- don't need. 

 

But I think there may be a snag, in that as the license cost goes up, the number of people willing or able to pay it will decrease- so you will sell fewer licenses. 

I suspect it would not be a directly proportional thing- by which I mean, if you doubled the license fee, you would not drive off away half of the boat owners. 

 

But if the license fee really did go up towards the approximate level that you estimate would actually meet the costs (around £5,000?), that would cause a huge drop in boat numbers, surely?

At a wild guess I reckon you could lose 50% of the boats, so in reality you only get enough money to cover half the costs. 

 

I wonder if CRT are looking at this sort of idea, and trying to estimate if there is a sweet spot that maximises their revenue.....

 

 

I would gladly pay a realistic price like £10K with no council tax  for half the boats to leave the canals. The retirees now buying new boats are able to afford such a price and conditions on the cut would be so much better than all the non licensed, permanently moored, barely floating rubbish boats that infest the system at present.

[Mike Todd]

13 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

But .......... with only 50% of the boats there would be far less demand on water resources, less wear & tear on the infrastructure (lock cycles etc) and less C&RT staff needed to manage the 50% less licences etc.

 

Win-Win all around.

While 'they' are about it, they should concrete over the oceans as well so that we can better build a wall around each country and live in splendid isolation, using petrol/diesel vehicles to travel between them (and to import goods made in other people's sweat shops)

[Tony1]

5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

But .......... with only 50% of the boats there would be far less demand on water resources, less wear & tear on the infrastructure (lock cycles etc) and less C&RT staff needed to manage the 50% less licences etc.

 

Win-Win all around.

 

I totally agree on the general point that lower numbers of users would mean less wear and tear, but I do wonder again if it would be proportional.

For example, with water and elsan points, there is the standing cost of maintaining those facilities, whether for 100 users or 10,000. 

 

I think locks would definitely last longer though if we only had half the current number of boats- so that's got to be a clear win in terms of CRT reducing costs. 

 

Only CRT and their accountants will know how these cost factors will interplay in setting the cost of a license, but we can make some broad assumptions. 

 

But then we get into the personal views on it- and I have to say that in the summer I would like to see fewer boats around (from a purely selfish POV of course, and assuming I'm not one of those who was forced out). 

 

But if a price increase forced a lot of the younger, more quirky characters out of the waterways, and left only the relatively prosperous middle aged or pensioners, I think that would be a sad day. Its one of the reasons I dont mind the Llangollen in summer. Lots of boats, but everyone's in a good mood, there's a holiday vibe, there are young families with kids- its just a nicer place to be than if it were just a floating retirement community.

Nothing against retirees of course- I am one myself- but sometimes too many older people in one place is not a great idea.