C&RT License Survey

[Alan de Enfield]

10 minutes ago, DaveP said:

 

That's now changed with the specific item in the June '22 T&C's - "5.2. Whilst travelling Our Waterways when away from Your Home Mooring, You may only moor for periods of up to 14 days, or less where a local restriction applies."

 

 

 

How long have you been on the canals ?

All they have done is clarify by adding 'Home Mooring'

 

2015 Licence T&Cs 

The Licence does not allow you to moor the Boat in any Waterway whilst cruising away from your Home Mooring except for short periods of up to 14 days, or less where a local restriction applies.

 

2008 Licence T&Cs

 

 

 

 

 

 

What they have not highlighted is that the requirement to 'move enough' (eg next Parish etc) does not apply to boats with a home mooring (only to CCers). A boat with a home mooring can move 100 yards every 14 days and be compliant.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[DaveP]

13 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

How long have you been on the canals ?

All they have done is clarify by adding 'Home Mooring'

 

2015 Licence T&Cs 

The Licence does not allow you to moor the Boat in any Waterway whilst cruising away from your Home Mooring except for short periods of up to 14 days, or less where a local restriction applies.

 

2008 Licence T&Cs

 

 

 

 

 

 

What they have not highlighted is that the requirement to 'move enough' (eg next Parish etc) does not apply to boats with a home mooring (only to CCers). A boat with a home mooring can move 100 yards every 14 days and be compliant.

 

I've only been around full-time since 2008, so am still learning.

 

"A boat with a home mooring can move 100 yards every 14 days and be compliant." - that's now ruled out as well under "5.1. You must travel on a journey when You are away from Your Home Mooring. Your journey should be a genuine journey. It should start and end at Your Home Mooring. It does not have to be over a certain duration, distance or range, or follow a single direction. It cannot contain short, repeated movement in a small part of the Waterway for an extended period, unless You return to the Home Mooring between repeated trips. Each time You leave Your Home Mooring You start a new journey"

So, repeated 100m hops forward (or forward and backwards) are breaches.  so now you need to undertake a series of hops that aren't short and repeated - I suspect they'd still be somewhat unhappy about a set of 100, 110, 120, 130, 140, 150, 105, 115 m movements though....

[magnetman]

On the face of it this recent change does move the goalposts for ghost mooring users. 

 

This must be a Good Thing. 

 

Speaking of the t&c changes my CRT licence renews automatically. I haven't ticked a box to agree to the t&c since that change. Does the auto renew bypass the requirement to actually confirm agreement with t&c when there have been relevant changes to the t&c? 

I don't know the legal ins and outs but it seems like the auto renew feature of the licence is possibly causing a conflict situation with the enforceability of the t&c. 

 

 

I did not know about the change which DaveP has indicated occurred last year. I have a CRT home mooring. I have not ticked a box to declare I am aware of this change and was not prompted to read the updated t&c. 

[Rob-M]

The returning to your home mooring and starting a new journey is key for those with a home mooring that want to regularly stop in one location.  This is what we do so we don't sit in the marina for long periods of time but can go and moor somewhere with a nicer outlook.

[Alan de Enfield]

1 hour ago, DaveP said:

"A boat with a home mooring can move 100 yards every 14 days and be compliant." - that's now ruled out as well under "5.1. You must travel on a journey when You are away from Your Home Mooring. Your journey should be a genuine journey. It should start and end at Your Home Mooring. It does not have to be over a certain duration, distance or range, or follow a single direction. It cannot contain short, repeated movement in a small part of the Waterway for an extended period, unless You return to the Home Mooring between repeated trips. Each time You leave Your Home Mooring You start a new journey"

 

Which C&RT cannot enforce - it is not within their remit to change the law, and only CCers are required to move sufficienty to 'satisfy the board'

 

A judge was perturbed that BW / C&RT try and enforce different definitions of 'place' not only within the same legislation (which is not desirable - to say the least) but within the same section, sub-section and even paragraph

 

Definition of ‘Place’

Mr Justice Lewis did observe that the word “place” was used both in section 17(3)(c)(i) in the context of a home mooring or other “place” where a boat may be kept, and in section 17(3)(c)(ii) in the context of a boater without a home mooring not remaining in any one “place” for more than 14 days. The Judge commented that usually it was desirable to interpret a word in the same way where it appeared in the same legislation, however, he came to no conclusion about whether the word “place” could be interpreted in the same way here (and indeed spent some time reflecting on the quite different meaning implied).

 

C&RT define a place as :

1) Where a boat can legally be kept (which is simply a 'boat sized' space).

2) Quote : “Place” in this context means a neighbourhood or locality, NOT simply a particular mooring site or position .Therefore to remain in the same neighbourhood for more than 14 days is not permitted. The necessary movement from one neighbourhood to another can be done in one step or by short gradual steps. What the law requires is that, if 14 days ago the boat was in neighbourhood A, by day 15 it must be in neighbourhood B or further afield. Thereafter, the next movement must be at least to neighbourhood C, and not back to neighbourhood A (with obvious exceptions such as reaching the end of a terminal waterway or reversing the direction of travel in the course of a genuine cruise). What constitutes a ‘neighbourhood’ will vary from area to area – on a rural waterway a village or hamlet may be a neighbourhood and on an urban waterway a suburb or district within a town or city may be a neighbourhood. A sensible and pragmatic judgement needs to be made

There is another thing to bear in mind and that is there is no legal requirement (despite C&RT saying there is) to agree and 'sign' the licence T&Cs.

 

The law requires only four things to be provided for the issue of a licence :

 

1) Payment

2) A home mooring / No mooring declaration

3) A BSSC

4) Insurance.

 

C&RT cannot refuse to issue a licence for any reason other than one or more of the above being absent.

 

 

BW Agree Only 3 Conditions To Licence

Nigel Moore 20/7/17

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.

 

[Steilsteven]

I know my place. 😉

[Alan de Enfield]

10 minutes ago, Steilsteven said:

I know my place. 😉

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

48 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

You are a dab hand at those comments 

[Ianws]

You're floundering a bit.

[magnetman]

I'm not soled on all this. 

[ditchcrawler]

2 minutes ago, magnetman said:

I'm not soled on all this. 

I think this thread like lots of others in the past is getting a bit fishy

[Jon57]

3 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I think this thread like lots of others in the past is getting a bit fishy

On the scale of things ,it’s not bad

[Alan de Enfield]

4 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I think this thread like lots of others in the past is getting a bit fishy

 

loada Pollacks

[Jon57]

1 minute ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

loada Pollacks

I’ve haddock enough now.

[magnetman]

It could become a little bleak which would be ruffe. 

[MtB]

For cod's hake, not fish puns again...

 

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

16 minutes ago, MtB said:

 not fish puns again...

 

 

 

Better than fingers

[Iain_S]

6 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

*snip)

A judge was perturbed that BW / C&RT try and enforce different definitions of 'place' not only within the same legislation (which is not desirable - to say the least) but within the same section, sub-section and even paragraph

 

Definition of ‘Place’

Mr Justice Lewis did observe that the word “place” was used both in section 17(3)(c)(i) in the context of a home mooring or other “place” where a boat may be kept, and in section 17(3)(c)(ii) in the context of a boater without a home mooring not remaining in any one “place” for more than 14 days. The Judge commented that usually it was desirable to interpret a word in the same way where it appeared in the same legislation, however, he came to no conclusion about whether the word “place” could be interpreted in the same way here (and indeed spent some time reflecting on the quite different meaning implied).

(snip)

 

 

And yet another judge in another case had no difficulty with the concept of several different meanings for "main navigational channel"!

[Mike Todd]

On 10/03/2023 at 09:55, peterboat said:

So why did it keep on asking the same questions about which 2 groups should pay more?

I think that it is a relatively new technique used by expert pollsters to refine relative choices rather than simply asking people to rank 1 - 10, with some degree of cross checking to establish confidence (actually a technical term) in the result.

On 10/03/2023 at 14:06, Arthur Marshall said:

That's why the government wants to bring in road pricing!

But if one person doesn't use their car for six months of the year, they can SORN it and not pay tax while it's in the garage.

Boaters, however, who don't use their boats for six months of the year pay more than those that use it all year round. So why should they pay more because they choose not to cruise much?

Comparisons are tricky...

Take the boat out of the water and only buy 6 month licence?

On 11/03/2023 at 09:32, MartynG said:

The whole idea of the consultation is discriminatory as it inevitably samples a large majority population who own a narrowboat and have a home mooring.

 

If a declaration of CC requires considerably greater license fee to be paid is it not likely that people will declare they have a home mooring?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anr reason to suppose that the results will be any more 'skewed' than the underlying population? All depends on whether you think such matters should be settled by referendum or by something more principled?

On 12/03/2023 at 19:47, magnetman said:

One wonders if the CRT are allowed to check how many people pay for moorings at a marina. If there were 200 people paying and only 100 berths one could smell a rat. 

 

 

CRT do check on the contents of marinas paying NAA.

On 12/03/2023 at 20:20, MartynG said:

 

One would imagine if asked , the marina ,would decline to answer that (or maybe a less polite response).

 I may be wrong but cant imagine C&RT have any rights to interrogate companies in this way. 

 

 

 

Under NAA they do

[Arthur Marshall]

15 hours ago, Iain_S said:

 

And yet another judge in another case had no difficulty with the concept of several different meanings for "main navigational channel"!

Relying on the members of the law agencies for consistency, knowledge or intelligence is a bit rash. Judges don't usually know much law,  thats why they have clerks, and why lawyers get rich.

[IanD]

7 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Relying on the members of the law agencies for consistency, knowledge or intelligence is a bit rash. Judges don't usually know much law,  thats why they have clerks, and why lawyers get rich.

Given that judges are appointed from the ranks of senior barristers and solicitors -- who are of course lawyers -- it's difficult to see how they could know less about the law than lawyers... 😉

 

Having said that they can certainly be a bit out of touch with the modern world -- when I was on jury service the plaintiff's brief had to explain "A chicken restaurant, m'lud" after the judge enquired "Nando's?"... 🙂

Edited March 14, 2023 by IanD

[MtB]

4 minutes ago, IanD said:

Given that judges are appointed from the ranks of senior barristers and solicitors -- who are of course lawyers -- it's difficult to see how they could know less about the law than lawyers... 😉

 

Judges, like landlords are easy targets to take cheap shots at. 

[IanD]

1 minute ago, MtB said:

 

Judges, like landlords are easy targets to take cheap shots at. 

 

Especially from the right wing press, when the judges find something the current government wants to do is illegal... 😉

[MtB]

1 minute ago, IanD said:

 

Especially from the right wing press, when the judges find something the current government wants to do is illegal... 😉

 

 

I'm sure THAT would never happen...

 

 

[Captain Pegg]

I completed the 'consultation' yesterday. The style was more one of a research questionnaire than a true consultation.

 

You could summarise the exercise as "Are you a turkey? Yes/No" and "Do you vote for Christmas? Yes/No". Folk will in general vote for what what benefits (or least disbenefits) them and in that sense the outcome could probably be arrived at by downloading CRTs licensing data into a spreadsheet, knocking up a pivot table, and spending about 15 minutes analysing it.

 

The whole issue seems to be steeped in assumption about how and why people boat and many boaters don't fit those assumptions. I gave up a £1,000 a year home mooring last year when I gave up full time employment and since then have spent £1,200 on short term moorings around the network because I don't liveaboard and I prefer to keep my craft in a secure location when not aboard. If there is a hike in licence fee for boaters without a home mooring then it may be pragmatic for me to buy the cheapest linear mooring I can find, no matter where it is, and spend my time invoking the reciprocal mooring arrangements whenever possible. That's the one thing I miss about not having a CRT linear mooring.