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London boaters fight for moorings


Boaty Jo

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30 minutes ago, waterworks said:

 

 

Bylaw 28 ( I don't have a cut and pasteable copy ) says obstruction of navigation not mooring, that's open to interpretation what the exact definition of " navigation" is,  certainly what you claimed is an interpretation. 

Mooring a craft for a short duration (overnight?) in the course of navigation is a basic requirement unless you have a 24 hour crew available. I would wager that even back in the day of commercial carrying people did tend to moor the boat up for the night. Obviously not always but it sort of makes sense that this would happen, especially on number ones. 

 

Most people don't have 24 hour crew on canal boats these days and it would be unreasonable to expect this. Therefore using a mooring for longer than one night is effectively obstruction of the navigation because it prevents others using the mooring as part of the process of navigating a vessel along the waterway. 

 

If towpaths were restricted to 24h stops it would work a whole lot better but they aren't so it doesn't. 

 

 

 

 

 

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47 minutes ago, magnetman said:

If towpaths were restricted to 24h stops it would work a whole lot better but they aren't so it doesn't. 

 

 

 

I have to say, when I came off the Thames onto the canal system 25 years ago I was ASTOUNDED to find you could moor pretty much wherever you liked for no charge, and for up to two weeks!!!! 

 

CRT (OR BW as it was back then) really do bend over backwards to accommodate boaters but sadly so many (e.g Dunkers especially, and probably waterworks) throw it back in their face. 

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2 hours ago, magnetman said:

Mooring a craft for a short duration (overnight?) in the course of navigation is a basic requirement unless you have a 24 hour crew available. I would wager that even back in the day of commercial carrying people did tend to moor the boat up for the night. Obviously not always but it sort of makes sense that this would happen, especially on number ones. 

 

Most people don't have 24 hour crew on canal boats these days and it would be unreasonable to expect this. Therefore using a mooring for longer than one night is effectively obstruction of the navigation because it prevents others using the mooring as part of the process of navigating a vessel along the waterway. 

 

If towpaths were restricted to 24h stops it would work a whole lot better but they aren't so it doesn't. 

 

 

 

 

 

Heavily contrived interpretation in my opinion.

 

No one has to stop in one specific mooring place, mooring hasn't stoped anyone "navigating" somewhere else to moor for the night.

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I’d go with waterworks on this one. A mooring that isn’t an obstruction in the first 24h (the wording of the byelaw suggests you could moor without causing an obstruction) doesn’t suddenly become an obstruction after 24h. It would need a particularly weird interpretation to say all mooring = obstruction.

 

A common sense interpretation would be that obstruction would mean, boats couldn’t pass by.

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4 minutes ago, Paul C said:

I’d go with waterworks on this one. A mooring that isn’t an obstruction in the first 24h (the wording of the byelaw suggests you could moor without causing an obstruction) doesn’t suddenly become an obstruction after 24h. It would need a particularly weird interpretation to say all mooring = obstruction.

 

A common sense interpretation would be that obstruction would mean, boats couldn’t pass by.

 

 

It reminds me of the offence of "obstruction" a copper threatens you with when he wants to move you on at, say, a demonstration.

 

The principle is, you are obstructing the square foot or so of pavement you are standing on and preventing others from using it, hence the offence of obstruction. Same applies to mooring really. If you are hogging a mooring, no-one else con use that small bit of waterway.

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Here is the byelaw wording (I've C&Pd 28 and 29):

 

Mooring of Vessels

Vessels to be properly moored

28. Any vessel (other than a dredger or other vessel engaged in works of maintenance of the canal) moored at any wharf or elsewhere in any canal shall be securely moored head and stern with good and sufficient ropes or other efficient apparatus and shall be laid as close to and along the side or front of such wharf or other mooring place as conveniently may be and shall be moored in such a manner and in such a position as not to cause any obstruction to the navigation of other vessels.

Mooring to lockgates etc.

29. No mooring rope shall be affixed to any sluice lockgate, bridge or other work of the Board not provided for the purpose of mooring.

 

================================================

 

Let's discuss "obstruction". I believe there's 2 things you might label 'obstruction', the second of which could be further split into 2 categories.

 

a) Obstructing the navigation. Ie, you moor a boat in a silly place, and nobody can get past. This is (I believe) what's meant by the byelaw 28 ("obstruction to the navigation of other vessels")

b) Obstructing a service/feature. The closest analogy might be where there's 1 water tap and a 72ft gap for a boat to moor alongside. Often on canals you will see "mooring for 30 mins" signs or similar here. Now clearly, when a boat is moored on it, another boat can't use that water facility - there's one tap, and the other boat would have to breast up (there might not be the canal width to allow this....) BUT the signage ALLOWS you to 'obstruct' it for 30 mins...to take on water. 

 

Now, you could extend this to other services/features, for example the limited-time visitor moorings and even the generally-understood 14 days mooring on the towpath. But the notion of obstruction becomes more diluted. If there's (let's not get too complicated with varying boat lengths etc) 4x mooring spaces and 1 boat on it, in theory yes the boat is obstructing that particular 1/4 provision, but in practice another boat could simply use mooring positions 2, 3 or 4 with no ill effect. Yes, in theory you're obstructing, but in a similar way to the water point, you are ALLOWED to obstruct it for a time limited period. That might be as-signed, it might be normal towpath and 14 days.

 

An interesting thing occurs when the mooring spaces become full. Say there's 4 spaces and all 4 are occupied. ALL 4 boats are "obstructing" it, BUT those which have been there less than the time limit are PERMITTED to, those overstaying are not. You rock up for a mooring and you don't know which is which, though. Its obstruction, but its a different definition to that in the byelaw.

 

Now the final point - does "navigation" include a God-given entitlement to tootle along the canal then moor up anywhere at the end of the day (for maybe 2 weeks...) ie is the right to moor in a particular spot included in the navigating of a boat. I'd say, sensibly, NO.

Edited by Paul C
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10 hours ago, MtB said:

 

I have to say, when I came off the Thames onto the canal system 25 years ago I was ASTOUNDED to find you could moor pretty much wherever you liked for no charge, and for up to two weeks!!!! 

 

CRT (OR BW as it was back then) really do bend over backwards to accommodate boaters but sadly so many (e.g Dunkers especially, and probably waterworks) throw it back in their face. 

 

You're definitely not customer friendly, and would make a perfect jobsworth for CRT.

 

 

Edited by Higgs
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Yes but certain people exist higher up the balance scale of piss taking than others and may view what they are doing as not actually taking the piss. 

 

The entitlement issue is getting quite problematic of late. Not quite sure what has happened but there do seem to be more and more people that genuinely believe they can take the piss and it's okay.

 

In some cases they will defend their right to take the piss tooth and nail. 

 

I'm not at all sure they are even aware that they are taking the piss. They could have been conditioned to believe that they are engaging in non-pisstaking behaviour. 

 

Its possible there is a degree of knowledge but one must take care not to assume that. 

 

There could be an awful lot of ignorance around. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited by magnetman
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6 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Yes but certain people exist higher up the balance scale of piss taking than others and may view what they are doing as not actually taking the piss. 

 

The entitlement issue is getting quite problematic of late. Not quite sure what has happened but there do seem to be more and more people that genuinely believe they can take the piss and it's okay.

 

I wonder if the housing crisis is causing a demographic shift in boaters, and those new boaters are more likely to be piss-takers. I would guess that previously, most liveaboards were drawn to the lifestyle, boats, or both. I.e., a genuine love of the canals and moving about. Now, we may have more people who are doing it as a cheap way to live, so moving about isn't actually the point of it for them.

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5 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Yes but certain people exist higher up the balance scale of piss taking than others and may view what they are doing as not actually taking the piss. 

 

The entitlement issue is getting quite problematic of late. Not quite sure what has happened but there do seem to be more and more people that genuinely believe they can take the piss and it's okay.

 

In some cases they will defend their right to take the piss tooth and nail. 

 

I'm not at all sure they are even aware that they are taking the piss. They could have been conditioned to believe that they are engaging in non-pisstaking behaviour. 

 

Its possible there is a degree of knowledge but one must take care not to assume that. 

 

There could be an awful lot of ignorance around. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There appears to be a whole generation that seem to consider themselves to be 'entitled'

Entitled to a job they want to do, or, to be paid a living wage for not working.

Entitled to have a house at a price they want to pay & where they want to live.

Entitled to have a boat and only apply the rules they think should apply to them.

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2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

There appears to be a whole generation that seem to consider themselves to be 'entitled'

Entitled to a job they want to do, or, to be paid a living wage for not working.

Entitled to have a house at a price they want to pay & where they want to live.

Entitled to have a boat and only apply the rules they think should apply to them.

 

Is this a boomer poem?

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Can't find it at the moment but in one of CRTs documents about restricting moorings in places such as under bridges and on sharp bends they do suggest that perhaps people just don't know about it.

 

It seems obvious that other people using the waterway would need to get around, see where they are going in order to execute manoovers etc.

 

However it is possible that there are a large number of people, and Thomas C King has alluded to this already, who have ended up living on boats but are completely oblivious to their surroundings and just moor wherever they can regardless.

 

It's just cheap housing. That's it. If it weren't cheap they would be nowhere near the cut in any circumstances except perhaps using the towpath as a transit route.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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3 minutes ago, magnetman said:

It's just cheap housing. That's it. If it weren't cheap they would be nowhere near the cut in any circumstances except perhaps using the towpath as a transit route.

 

It's a means of survival. 

 

 

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19 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

There appears to be a whole generation that seem to consider themselves to be 'entitled'

Entitled to a job they want to do, or, to be paid a living wage for not working.

Entitled to have a house at a price they want to pay & where they want to live.

Entitled to have a boat and only apply the rules they think should apply to them.

Not like the good old days then, when the landlords annd landowners ran everything, and the good old general public shut up and did what they were told? Check out who runs this country and decides on the laws if you want to see a whole generation of the entitled!

Sometimes, the plebs think they ought to get a bit of what the toffs have always had. Like, a place to live and food on the table.

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25 minutes ago, Thomas C King said:

I wonder if the housing crisis is causing a demographic shift in boaters, and those new boaters are more likely to be piss-takers.

 

There is an element of this I think, new boaters angry with the world because they were denied buying a house coming onto the water. This was ME to a tee 45 years ago!

 

I have also on several occasions encountered new boaters surprised to discover/be told there are any rules at all, who think the canals are natural and got put there by God's almighty hand for them to use however they wish. All of whom had assumed it would be fine to pick themselves a secluded spot on the towpath and settle in, and no-one would bother them provided their spot was suitably 'out of the way'. 

 

 

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2 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Not like the good old days then, when the landlords annd landowners ran everything, and the good old general public shut up and did what they were told? Check out who runs this country and decides on the laws if you want to see a whole generation of the entitled!

Sometimes, the plebs think they ought to get a bit of what the toffs have always had. Like, a place to live and food on the table.

 

The difference was 50 years ago you got a house where there was work, not bought a house where you wanted to live and expected a house to be available that you could afford and a job to be there for you.

 

Apparently there are a record number of job vacancies (some 1.3 - 1.5 million depending on which news you follow) so no excuse for not being in work and having food on the table.

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5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

The difference was 50 years ago you got a house where there was work, not bought a house where you wanted to live and expected a house to be available that you could afford and a job to be there for you.

 

Apparently there are a record number of job vacancies (some 1.3 - 1.5 million depending on which news you follow) so no excuse for not being in work and having food on the table.

 

But a hell of a lot different then, when three and half times your annual wage was the calculation of your mortgage, and would be enough to secure an average house. 

 

 

Edited by Higgs
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7 minutes ago, MtB said:

All of whom had assumed it would be fine to pick themselves a secluded spot on the towpath and settle in, and no-one would bother them provided their spot was suitably 'out of the way'. 

As demonstrated by some of the newbie posts which appear here from time to time. And those are the ones who have done some research to find this site in the first place!

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25 minutes ago, Higgs said:

 

It's a means of survival. 

 

 

For some it will be but by no means the majority. 

 

London property prices are crazy. I don't own any property as not interested but it has gone mad. People don't have to live in London it's not a legal requirement. They want to and living on a boat is very very cheap on towpath so it gets done. It's not locals who have been priced out it is people from other parts of the country (and other countries) specifically turning up due to the low costs. And a lot of people live in London while they are young as it is all rather trendy. 

 

It's not all about poverty. Saying it is is not very convincing. It's a much bigger picture.

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1 minute ago, magnetman said:

For some it will be but by no means the majority. 

 

London property prices are crazy. I don't own any property as not interested but it has gone mad. People don't have to live in London it's not a legal requirement. They want to and living on a boat is very very cheap on towpath so it gets done. It's not locals who have been priced out it is people from other parts of the country (and other countries) specifically turning up due to the low costs. And a lot of people live in London while they are young as it is all rather trendy. 

 

It's not all about poverty. Saying it is is not very convincing. It's a much bigger picture.

 

Perhaps people, as always, are drawn to the big city for their ambitions; take what they can get, and do it by any means they can. Easy access is not provided, but why should they be denied their shoe-in. It isn't perfect for anyone. 

 

 

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