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C&RT License Survey


Arthur Marshall

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13% increase from April for those of us who pay around then, 9% if you got yours from September.

I'm going to have to start thinking about whether I can afford it any more, especially if the system shuts down again this summer. What's the point of paying so much for not being able to go anywhere?

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I imagine that sort of increase will bring a lot more folks into the cannot / will not pay it group.

Throw in Red Diesel at ~£2 per litre, gas and coal prices escalating and it will soon become a 'muddy ditch' for the rich.

 

More unlicenced boats that will 'play the system' and the day before they are due to be lifted out will either move a few miles or are sold 'to a mate' for £1.

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  I think a lot of people who have been on the Canals a long time and I don’t mean the Newbie Youtuber dreamers of a few year will be thinking the same, also with the the increase cost of diesel hasn’t helped. The Canals and CaRT’s approach towards there use is changing and I would say for the worse for what I seen for boaters. 

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9 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I imagine that sort of increase will bring a lot more folks into the cannot / will not pay it group.

Throw in Red Diesel at ~£2 per litre, gas and coal prices escalating and it will soon become a 'muddy ditch' for the rich.

 The order books for the builders in the yard  where I am are full for the next few years with boats costing £250k plus. Madness.

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13 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

13% increase from April for those of us who pay around then, 9% if you got yours from September.

I'm going to have to start thinking about whether I can afford it any more, especially if the system shuts down again this summer. What's the point of paying so much for not being able to go anywhere?

I'm afraid this is bad news, there will be even less proper chaps like @Arthur Marshall on the cut, in fact no one will be buying a boat as a hobby, it's more likely these boats will be sold and head for London, where rents are so high, and houses so unaffordable .

We all have a budget, I did my sums before all this started, and added a fair bit for inflation of outgoings, ie ten percent, but the government shafted me by rescinding the triple lock last year, money lost that can never be recovered. Food is up fifteen percent per annum,  and fuel about fifty percent.

So it's likely I'll be heading South, then cash out sooner than planned. I won't be the only one.

 

 

 

 

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6 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

 The order books for the builders in the yard  where I am are full for the next few years with boats costing £250k plus. Madness.

 

I doubt there are many 'on the poverty line' who will be buying new boats, hence the constant requests on the forum for help and guidance, "what will it cost to replace a wooden cabin", "how much is overplating" , etc etc for boats costing sub-£20k.

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I (being a leisure user these days) had one long trip last spring, a couple of short jaunts and a truly dreadful summer when I had to hurtle back to Macclesfield from Northwich in order to beat the closure, which at my age is dangerous as well as unpleasant. This after being banned from travelling in the pandemic, and closures due to crap maintenance all over the place.

I can't image this huge increase won't be the norm in future years, either. I presume they'll put mooring fees up by the same amount, though with luck my provider won't. I do think this will take a lot of us low income folk off the canal, and give the middle income ones a bit of a pause for thought too. I can see why CRT have to do it, but it's a shame . I've thoroughly enjoyed the last thirty years, both living on and leisure, but I suspect in another two I'll be gone. And order books for new boats may be full, but how many will be cancelled as the year goes on?

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31 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

We didn't think that boating on CRT waters was offering good value for money a couple of years ago. It most certainly isn't now with the price rises since.

 

We definitely "got out" at the right time.

 

Ditto.

 

If we hadn't sold in 2015 and had carried on until now this would probably have been the straw that broke the camel's back. We had a CRT mooring too so no doubt that would/will be going up a similar amount so a double whammy.

 

The problem now is that this may lead to a glut of boats of the used market with the resultant downward pressure on prices.

 

Boating is even more  set to become the domain of the comfortably, if not the very comfortably off.

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I cannot see why any "comfortably rich" or "well off" boater would want to run their gin palaces up and down a muddy and not always very navigable ditch for the increasing amount money required to do that. Far nicer for them to take their expensive deep drafted boats to a nice little marina/harbour on the sea shore where they can boat for less money in much pleasenter surroundings. I think that's the sort of thing Alan de Enfield did. I ditched owning my own boats round about the same time as Naughty Cal and M_JG. I'm still of the opinion that the ultimate aim of CRT is to get rid of boats all together.

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21 minutes ago, pete.i said:

Far nicer for them to take their expensive deep drafted boats to a nice little marina/harbour on the sea shore where they can boat for less money in much pleasenter surroundings.

 

Well maybe, but it's an apple and oranges situation. Sea boating requires much greater knowledge, skill and training compared to inland waterway boating and I'd never recommend an inland water boater go near the sea without considerable mentoring/training even if they have a suitable boat. 

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9 minutes ago, pete.i said:

I think that's the sort of thing Alan de Enfield did

 

For about 40 years we have had both NBs and crusiers pretty much at least one of each concurrently.

 

The Canal was steadily improving from 1980 until around the early 2000's it was a joy to be out and about slowly bimbling along stopping wherever we wanted - just as the canals should be.

We still had out Sea going cruisers that got some use on longer holidays going further afield but we always 'navigated' our way back to the Canals and Rivers.

 

Come the turn of the century the canals started to 'fall apart' the bottom was getting nearer to the top, there was a lack of maintenance and as we got older the canals got harder to use but we continued - roll on 2012 and the 'new guys on the track' were going to make it all right again.

C&RT inherited a large maintenance backlog from BW and despite this being pointed out to them by KPMG prior to the 'hand over' they were not concerned and ACTUALLY PLANNED to continue the underspend to even maintain the 'steady state' let alone eat into the ever increasing backlog of work.

Then they sold off all the maintenace tools and made redundant the years of experience that was held by the lock keepers and lengthsmen, but it looked good in the books and allowed them to appoint more managers and directors and regional heads it is now a case of "too many Chiefs and not enough Indians"

 

The "rot" continued and it suddenly appeared that many / most / all of the infrastructe failures were down to boaters - lock beams snapping off, breaches because a boater left the gate paddles open etc etc etc. I guess that was simply because one of their KPIs was number of days lost due to failure of things within C&RTs control - if it is left to rot - that is within C&RTs control, if a boater causes a breach that is not counted as being within C&RTS control.

 

For us (yes aging may have paid a part) the canals just became a much less pleasant place to be and 'hard work'. We even ran aground in the main channel on the Trent where C&RTS own dreging figures said they must maintain 6 feet depth.

 

We were getting more an more enjoyment, and spending more time at the coast (and less hassle, paperwork, rules and easier to use the boat) - it became the time to Sell the NB and so we sold up, took the Cruiser over to Anglesey ( 3 years ago) and moved the 'Big-Cat' from Hull to Plymouth.

We now spend 4-5-6 months at a time on one of the Coastal boats - its great !

 

It's sad and we do look back with fond memories, regularly when out driving and we cross a canal we'll say "remember when.............." but I think if we had not acted when we did we'd (I'd) be very bitter now about what we were getting for our money.

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1 hour ago, pete.i said:

I cannot see why any "comfortably rich" or "well off" boater would want to run their gin palaces up and down a muddy and not always very navigable ditch for the increasing amount money required to do that. Far nicer for them to take their expensive deep drafted boats to a nice little marina/harbour on the sea shore where they can boat for less money in much pleasenter surroundings. I think that's the sort of thing Alan de Enfield did. I ditched owning my own boats round about the same time as Naughty Cal and M_JG. I'm still of the opinion that the ultimate aim of CRT is to get rid of boats all together.

You may well be forgetting that boaters whose income would mean that they would otherwise get help with their rent can get similar towards the costs of licence and mooring, so it may well be not the lowest income boaters who opt out.

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Yes but... For my two grand a year I'm still (assuming there's enough water) getting at least three months floating about. Plus bits and pieces elsewhere.

As my wife keeps telling me, renting a holiday cottage for a week would cost most of that, and it stays in the same place all the time.

Sighs heavily and postpones blacking it for another year.

Mind you, what's the betting they treble the cost of the BSS next year, just for fun?

 

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5 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

13% increase from April for those of us who pay around then, 9% if you got yours from September.

I'm going to have to start thinking about whether I can afford it any more, especially if the system shuts down again this summer. What's the point of paying so much for not being able to go anywhere?

Tell me about it I upgraded to a Gold License today £1446 - ouch!, ouch!, ouch!

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24 minutes ago, Goliath said:

if only...I bought fuel today at £1.90 per litre, domestic price, not far from triple the price a year ago.

So a tad more than 50% 

£50 gets you F all now

 

 

I know its a car - but I 'filled up' from just under 1/4 tank to brimming full last week and it cost £123.

I'm trying not to think what it would cost to fill the boat tanks from empty (1x 1000 litre and 2x 900 litre wing tanks) but that would give us 2000 miles (with reserves) cruising. Caernarfon to Barcelona non-stop.

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35 minutes ago, Goliath said:

if only...I bought fuel today at £1.90 per litre, domestic price, not far from triple the price a year ago.

So a tad more than 50% 

£50 gets you F all now

 

Sounds like pure profiteering at that price, especially as Brent crude is at its lowest price since Jan 22. I paid £125 for domestic which I felt was about right 

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1 hour ago, Goliath said:

if only...I bought fuel today at £1.90 per litre, domestic price, not far from triple the price a year ago.

So a tad more than 50% 

£50 gets you F all now

 

I was factoring in diesel, which I use less and less of, and coal, logs, kindling and firelighters.

Forecourt price is 185ppl.

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1 hour ago, Goliath said:

if only...I bought fuel today at £1.90 per litre, domestic price, not far from triple the price a year ago.

So a tad more than 50% 

£50 gets you F all now

 

When we moved aboard full time live aboards in 89 diesel could still be had for 50 pence A GALLON. A tad more in some places. There were plenty of three piece suites in the cut and several cars. Such as the A and C had lengsthmen and full time lockies lived in the lock cottages at most of the locks. Other areas were maintained to a lesser extent, the coventry canal was full of rubbish and furniture when we moved aboard at Ansty the day we set off. The canals improved over the next approx ten or so years but have gone downhill for the last few. Still better to live on a boat than a house if you can, lets hope it improves again over the next few years. 

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31 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Oil price makes up a very small part of the final cost of a litre of diesel.

Yes but it’s what dictates the fluctuations in price we pay 

17 minutes ago, Midnight said:

£125 a litre - you was robbed

 

At today's prices it's all domestic!

Doh……typo £1.25

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1 hour ago, Goliath said:

if only...I bought fuel today at £1.90 per litre, domestic price, not far from triple the price a year ago.

So a tad more than 50% 

£50 gets you F all now

 

Several years ago I pulled onto the jetty at a boatyard on the L&L. Chap stood next to the diesel pump with nozzle in hand says "It'll all be domestic then?" "If you insist" says I. "How you going to get back to Ripon then," says he "With what's aleady in the tank" says I, "Good answer mate" and he fills up the tank.

 

 

Edited by Midnight
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