Not looking good for us

[Jon57]

3 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

 

Hmmm. I think you're making the skoolboy error of expecting a CRT office admin on minimum wage to have the faintest idea of what a canal is. I think they've done their very best here to answer you despite their absence of boating experience, and actually done pretty well.

 

Hve you taken any CRT staff out boating on that scheme they have for this? 

 

 

They may be sending the troops to get me passed. If so will give them a lift to the next lock if that’s working.

[Arthur Marshall]

18 hours ago, LadyG said:

Would there then be anything to stop me mooring where you normally moor? I can see quite a rush for nice places if we are all levelled up.

No living on where I moor, sadly! There's a fee to the farm as well as the CRT bit, too.

[peterboat]

19 hours ago, LadyG said:

Really, I've not seen one for about six months, maybe my habit of asking them to put me through the lock means they are getting a bit wary of approaching me, lol.

Agree, I don't have enough info on most of those points, but those involved will vote as expected. I did say I don't think electric boats should have a discount, it defies logic, In the next ten years it is unlikely the cmers who may be polluting urban areas will be replaced with electric boats, even if they had a fifty percent discount. The people who we understand are living aboard because they can't afford rental or other housing are not going to buy electric boats.

It's a farce.

The issue is, if no incentives exist to go  electric, we could easily end up with a situation where if the government says like for ICE cars all boats sold after 2030 have to be electric, no boat makers have the skills to do it. IanD has gone electric at great expense, mine wasn't so expensive but has its limitations. If there was no incentives I am not sure I would have bothered, the conversion to electric made the increase in licence for a widebeam neutral. Having done the conversion I can say it's a more pleasant experience in a boat, no noise or fumes is fantastic. Anyway as I and others have said this is a divide and conquer exercise to get what they want! Its clearly working I fully expect your license to go up 50% and mine similar not that I expect to be on CRT waterways by then.

[IanD]

6 minutes ago, peterboat said:

The issue is, if no incentives exist to go  electric, we could easily end up with a situation where if the government says like for ICE cars all boats sold after 2030 have to be electric, no boat makers have the skills to do it. IanD has gone electric at great expense, mine wasn't so expensive but has its limitations. If there was no incentives I am not sure I would have bothered, the conversion to electric made the increase in licence for a widebeam neutral. Having done the conversion I can say it's a more pleasant experience in a boat, no noise or fumes is fantastic. Anyway as I and others have said this is a divide and conquer exercise to get what they want! Its clearly working I fully expect your license to go up 50% and mine similar not that I expect to be on CRT waterways by then.

 

What "they" (CART) want is more money, and it will make no difference to them who pays how much so long as the total increase is the same, which it will be -- "divide and conquer" isn't what's happening here, what is happening is that some boaters will pay more than others.

 

Not before time, many will say, but that *is* personal opinion... 😉

[PD1964]

22 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

What "they" (CART) want is more money, and it will make no difference to them who pays how much so long as the total increase is the same, which it will be -- "divide and conquer" isn't what's happening here, what is happening is that some boaters will pay more than others.

 

Not before time, many will say, but that *is* personal opinion... 😉

We all know CaRT need money, Hopefully it will be fair across the board,  I don’t think there should be massive discounts for any boats to offset increases in other boats, Hopefully there will be no divide and conquer, but why should my license increase and say a historic boat license decrease or electric boats get discount and wides get a massive increase? Every boat should get an increase in license, be it old, new, diesel, electric, wide, narrow or owned by rich or poor, which should be proportional to size.

Edited February 23, 2023 by PD1964

[magnetman]

Proportional to displacement would be a useful approach but a bit difficult to get accurate measurements. I do know both my boats weigh 16 tonnes as they have been on travel hoists with accurate load cells.

BUT it would be quite complicated to weigh all the boats. Great fun though !

[IanD]

13 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

We all know CaRT need money, Hopefully it will be fair across the board,  I don’t think there should be massive discounts for any boats to offset increases in other boats, Hopefully there will be no divide and conquer, but why should my license increase and say a historic boat license decrease or electric boats get discount and wides get a massive increase? Every boat should get an increase in license, be it old, new, diesel, electric, wide, narrow or owned by rich or poor, which should be proportional to size.

 

Almost everyone thinks that an increase that applies to them is "unfair"... 😉

 

Charging boats by area (length*width) will mean a big increase for wideboats; many boaters (but not wideboat owners) will say that this is only fair, because they're currently paying a lot less per square foot for their living space -- or narrowboats are paying a lot more, which amounts to the same thing.

 

This can be seen as the justified correction of a historical anomaly or persecution of wideboat owners, depending on how wide your boat is... 😉

 

9 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Proportional to displacement would be a useful approach but a bit difficult to get accurate measurements. I do know both my boats weigh 16 tonnes as they have been on travel hoists with accurate load cells.

BUT it would be quite complicated to weigh all the boats. Great fun though !

 

Area makes more sense for canal boats, and is much easier to calculate and check -- no gauging or craning needed... 😉

Edited February 23, 2023 by IanD

[Alan de Enfield]

3 minutes ago, IanD said:

Charging boats by area (length*width) will mean a big increase for wideboats; many boaters (but not wideboat owners) will say that this is only fair, because they're currently paying a lot less per square foot for their living space -- or narrowboats are paying too much, which amounts to the same thing.

 

This can be seen as the justified correction of a historical anomaly or persecution of wideboat owners, depending on how wide your boat is...

 

It could also have a big effect on longer NBs

 

A typical 50 foot x 10 foot widebeam = 500 square feet (46.5 sq mts)

A 70 foot x 7 foot narrowboat = 490 square feet. (45.5 sq. mts)

 

So both would fall into the same pricing category.

[PD1964]

I think just length and width once over 6’10” and get rid of any discounts for historic or electric boats or prompt payment. The majority of new electric boat owners aren’t doing it to save the planet but want silent boating.

  Anyway Pop Master has just finished, so off for a walk down the Canal with the dog, will have a check to see if anymore coping stones have fallen in as the bank gets more under mined.

Edited February 23, 2023 by PD1964

[magnetman]

Thames has always charged length x beam. Its such an obvious way of doing it I don't really understand why it doesn't happen on canals.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

6 minutes ago, IanD said:

Almost everyone thinks that an increase that applies to them is "unfair"... 😉

Not if it’s across the board. 
If it’s to them alone and not others then yes it’s possibly unfair. 
 

 

[IanD]

13 minutes ago, PD1964 said:

I think just length and width once over 6’10” and get rid of any discounts for historic or electric boats or prompt payment. The majority of new electric boat owners aren’t doing it to save the planet but want silent boating.

Personally I agree, but CART might see the electric discount as a way of persuading people to shift away from diesels to make the canals a quieter and less polluted place -- not save the planet, there are 1000x more cars than canal boats in the UK. I expect they see the historic boat discount as a way to encourage people to keep such expensive-to-maintain boats on the canals to contribute to the historical feel.

 

Prompt payment discount is purely a monetary device, it rewards people for giving more money in advance to CART which helps with their cashflow. Many businesses do this for the same reason.

 

12 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Thames has always charged length x beam. Its such an obvious way of doing it I don't really understand why it doesn't happen on canals.

 

Because last time CART proposed it there was a massive outcry ("CART dictatorship!") from those who would suddenly end up paying more, so CART retreated (and just applied a small surcharge). The same happened when they floated the idea of a big CC supplement (+150% IIRC).

 

This time they're asking boaters to decide, which will make it a lot harder for the boaters hit by big increases to give a valid reason why it shouldn't happen. It's a clever way to get turkeys to vote for Xmas... 😉

Edited February 23, 2023 by IanD

[magnetman]

When did this survey start?

 

I got an email about it today.

[IanD]

20 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

It could also have a big effect on longer NBs

 

A typical 50 foot x 10 foot widebeam = 500 square feet (46.5 sq mts)

A 70 foot x 7 foot narrowboat = 490 square feet. (45.5 sq. mts)

 

So both would fall into the same pricing category.

 

Of course they would, and many people would say that's fair. A 72' x 14' widebeam (1000 sq ft) will of course pay a lot more still.

 

The assumption would be that since existing narrowboats are charged by length, charging by area would make very little difference to them -- all the big increases would be on widebeams, especially the *really* wide ones which are becoming increasingly common down here... 😞

 

4 minutes ago, magnetman said:

When did this survey start?

 

I got an email about it today.

 

Some people have already done the survey (had a link sent to them), others are still waiting. I got an email yesterday saying:

 

"I have added your details to the consultation contact list. You should receive an email from DJS Research with a link to the consultation early next week. If you haven't had it by Wednesday 1st March, and you've checked your spam/junk folder, please let me know."

Edited February 23, 2023 by IanD

[magnetman]

I wonder if I will be the only person with a wide beam craft who votes for an increase in the fees for widebeam craft.

Of course my boat isn't a wide beam canal boat it is a seagoing trawler style motor cruiser which happens to be on a CRT waterway and is wider than a narrow boat (10ft6)

Maybe the turkeys will vote for christmas after all. What a relief.

[David Mack]

On 20/02/2023 at 10:06, MartynG said:

Its the signs that have no function that people consider to be a waste of money . Especially so when they are in locations only seen by boaters 

Looking through my copy of John Gagg's 'Canals in Camera', published in 1970, I found the following observation.

"And the signs that cause canal travellers to make cynical remarks are the beautiful and expensive-looking ones put up by British Waterways to announce to passing railway travellers the name of the canal."

I haven't noticed one for years, but there used to be very large signs in the original corporate BW blue and gold, mounted high up in places where the canal and railway were parallel.

 

[Arthur Marshall]

2 hours ago, IanD said:

This time they're asking boaters to decide, which will make it a lot harder for the boaters hit by big increases to give a valid reason why it shouldn't happen. It's a clever way to get turkeys to vote for Xmas... 😉

They aren't asking boaters to decide. Dunno where you got that idea from. They consult. They decide. We pay.

[IanD]

14 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

They aren't asking boaters to decide. Dunno where you got that idea from. They consult. They decide. We pay.

If they're not going to use the results, why have the consultation?

 

Having it and then ignoring the results is the worst of all possible options for CART, they'll get slammed for ignoring boaters and being unfair prejudiced Nazis. They'd be better not having a consultation and just imposing changes, they'd get less hassle this way (but still a lot). The least hassle option for CART is to have the consultation and use the results to decide who pays what, then deflect screams of protest with "we only did what you asked for". And CART do have a long history of taking the easiest option and fudging difficult decisions, so there's no reason they won't do the easy thing here.

 

Is this really so hard to understand?

Edited February 23, 2023 by IanD

[ditchcrawler]

27 minutes ago, IanD said:

If they're not going to use the results, why have the consultation?

 

Because they have to

[IanD]

7 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Because they have to

Where does it say that? What stops them just unilaterally announcing changes to the license fees, like in the past? (and collecting shedloads of flak for doing it)

[Ronaldo47]

Reminds me that a couple of years ago, Northern Rail had a stand at one of their main stations with examples of three different designs of seat that could be used in their new trains. The public were invited to try them out and vote on which one they preferred. The one that literally got no votes was the one that they used, no doubt because it was the cheapest. It made the consultation a nonsense.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

41 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

Because they have to

Is it just a PR thing?

and something they can wave at the government with?

 

I suppose once entered into there are legalities they must follow.

[Arthur Marshall]

1 hour ago, IanD said:

If they're not going to use the results, why have the consultation?

 

Having it and then ignoring the results is the worst of all possible options for CART, they'll get slammed for ignoring boaters and being unfair prejudiced Nazis. They'd be better not having a consultation and just imposing changes, they'd get less hassle this way (but still a lot). The least hassle option for CART is to have the consultation and use the results to decide who pays what, then deflect screams of protest with "we only did what you asked for". And CART do have a long history of taking the easiest option and fudging difficult decisions, so there's no reason they won't do the easy thing here.

 

Is this really so hard to understand?

Who is going to slam them? You think they worry about what half a dozen people (a fair few without boats) post on a forum? The NBTA? Either of the other two initialised lapdogs? MPs? Maybe the four people who will bother to email them and grumble?

What you aren't aware of is that nobody cares what CRT do, including most of us. We just heave a sigh, pay up and enjoy our boats while we can, on the bits of water that are left (not a lot, last year). There is no reason for CRT to bother if we whinge because they can't hear us. There is no avenue for us to take to get a message there. There is no profit in them hearing us, so they never have and they never will. If there was, they wouldn't have picked Parry, whose entire history was in trains. They could have picked someone with an interest in canals, but they didn't.

CRT management have no real interest in the system as a navigation. It's a national park that loses a load of money, and if you look at what's happening to parks all round the country, you'll see what will happen to the canal system.

And the point of a consultation is to be able to say afterwards that there was a consultation. That's all. Nobody's going to remember the result, most won't bother to read it. They'll just remember there was one.

Edited February 23, 2023 by Arthur Marshall

[IanD]

14 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Who is going to slam them? You think they worry about what half a dozen people (a fair few without boats) post on a forum? The NBTA? Either of the other two initialised lapdogs? MPs? Maybe the four people who will bother to email them and grumble?

What you aren't aware of is that nobody cares what CRT do, including most of us. We just heave a sigh, pay up and enjoy our boats while we can, on the bits of water that are left (not a lot, last year). There is no reason for CRT to bother if we whinge because they can't hear us. There is no avenue for us to take to get a message there. There is no profit in them hearing us, so they never have and they never will. If there was, they wouldn't have picked Parry, whose entire history was in trains. They could have picked someone with an interest in canals, but they didn't.

CRT management have no real interest in the system as a navigation. It's a national park that loses a load of money, and if you look at what's happening to parks all round the country, you'll see what will happen to the canal system.

And the point of a consultation is to be able to say afterwards that there was a consultation. That's all. Nobody's going to remember the result, most won't bother to read it. They'll just remember there was one.

OK, let's wait and see what the results are and what CART decide to do as a result. Until then it's all speculation... 😉

[Arthur Marshall]

10 minutes ago, IanD said:

OK, let's wait and see what the results are and what CART decide to do as a result. Until then it's all speculation... 😉

Very true!