C&RT License Survey

[magnetman]

I don't think anyone is against the cc ing model per se but there is a bit of resistance to people who got a boat simply because it allows such a cheap lifestyle.

If you could live in a bus and stop in a central London park for two weeks then drive 5 minutes away and repeat then a LOT of people would live in buses. 

 

It depends what the towpaths are for. 

 

Are they for overnight stops by people who want to be boating or fortnightly stops for people who do not want to be boating? 

 

What is the towpath actually for now that its original use has become obsolete?

[agg221]

21 minutes ago, Colin Brendan said:

No - like most people - sustaining the place I live is pretty important to me. The problem I have is the organisation who run it don't want me or the CCer community to exist. Not dissimilar from this forum I think. In fact, maybe I took a wrong turn coming here! The cabal seems fairly fixed! And they do say no useful debate happens on social media. I guess they are right. If crt tried to work with ccers for once this would be a whole different story. Like many ccer and hmers alike - I will do everything I can to support the canals, but cannot support CRT with their current discriminatory agenda.

 

To correct a couple of points from your post:

 

1. There is plenty of useful debate on this forum, and on this thread in particular. Unlike many CWDF threads, this one has remained civil throughout the discussion of a contentious topic. You may be confusing this with people not agreeing with you, which is fundamentally the reason for a debate.

2.  You appear to feel that there is an anti-CCer mindset, in the form of a 'them and us' mentality. I do not detect this. I see nobody suggesting at any point that CCing and the associated community should be eliminated*.

 

I do see a clear consensus that without additional funding the state of the network will deteriorate still further. I also see a general recognition that boaters in general will be asked to pay more to generate a substantially increased revenue stream. There are several options as to how this cost could be split, and CRT has chosen a particular option. I have not been persuaded by any arguments given so far that this is fundamentally the wrong choice.

 

Attacking the basis for the decision will not work - there are several pages of posts immediately preceding this which indicate why that is the case (largely that there is no obligation to consult, and that having chosen to do so, CRT has chosen the approach which got the most votes).

 

@Arthur Marshall makes a very good point that historically all boaters paid the same (I presume with a variation for length) regardless of their mooring status, and correspondingly no charge was levied by the waterways authority against privately run moorings. I would be interested to know whether you feel this approach would be 'unfair' and if so, why?

 

Alec

 

* as distinct from the mindset of claiming continuous cruising status whilst making every effort to avoid cruising at all - there is definitely a very strong sentiment for eliminating that, but it is from all other parts of the community regardless of mooring status so is not a point of difference.

Edited December 16, 2023 by agg221

[haggis]

Having read this thread I honestly don't know what you (Colin Brendan) are bleating about.  Please answer one question. Why do folk who have signed up to continuously cruise think they can get away with doing the very opposite ? If I was in that position  I think I would be keeping my head down and paying the small increase

Edited December 16, 2023 by haggis

[Alan de Enfield]

8 minutes ago, Colin Brendan said:

And the thing no-one seems to be addressing - how come IWA, NABO, K&A Boaters, nbta, and AWA all came out against the surcharge?

 

The IWA are an irrelevance today, they have no say, far fewer members and very little interest compared to years ago.

The Baton Twirlers, AWA and the K&A boaters are all of a similar feather and you'd not expect them to support anything that detracts from the "the world owes us a living" point of view of the Southern CMers.

 

If, as you say, NABO are supportive of no excess charges for CCers, I'm very surprised, I thought they had a more realistic and 'grown up' attitude.

 

 

[magnetman]

I think it could be a deeply embedded dislike of authority. Possibly installed in early childhood. 

 

there is this entitlement thing. Its a fascinating topic for someone doing psychology. 

 

Where does it come from?  

 

It could be parents who prefer to get into negotiations with their infant children rather than being in charge and telling them what to do. 

 

I hate seeing this. My girls have always known I am boss. Kids need this support otherwise they get problems later. 

[Naughty Cal]

14 minutes ago, magnetman said:

I think it could be a deeply embedded dislike of authority. Possibly installed in early childhood. 

 

there is this entitlement thing. Its a fascinating topic for someone doing psychology. 

 

Where does it come from?  

 

It could be parents who prefer to get into negotiations with their infant children rather than being in charge and telling them what to do. 

 

I hate seeing this. My girls have always known I am boss. Kids need this support otherwise they get problems later. 

You have hit the nail on the head there.

[Colin Brendan]

It is the unanimity of your reactions that makes it a cabal.

 

And yes, my psychological quirks are many, and often found in child hood to some extent, as most psychological quirks are - all part of the human tapestry.

 

though, I really do suggest turning that lense on yourself at some point - having listened to your rather imposing words, 'boss', I find myself being so very glad that I am not one of your 'girls'.

Edited December 16, 2023 by Colin Brendan

[Peanut]

49 minutes ago, Colin Brendan said:

 how come IWA, NABO, K&A Boaters, nbta, and AWA all came out against the surcharge?

 

If you want to see their submissions, you could ask them to let you have a copy, then you would see what CRT won't tell you.

 

[magnetman]

Its alright I not at all dominating. Just firm. Never once have I used any physical discipline or raised my voice with the children and yes I did a lot of the childcare from when they were babies. 

 

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, Colin Brendan said:

l

 

though, I really do suggest turning that lense on yourself at some point - having listened to your rather imposing words, 'boss', I find myself being so very glad that I am not one of your 'girls'.

 

[Mike Todd]

4 hours ago, magnetman said:

Quite a few yars ago BW sent out literature to all boaters. I remember it in the late 90s. There were several things such as having children in school or needing access to work and the last few words were "This defines what continuous cruising is not". 

 

There were loads of warnings about what would and would not satisfy the board. In fact this is the reason I took a mooring. We had children and due to my having been on boats for so long and understanding the situation it would not be viable to cc and have kids. 

 

Of course things have since been watered down but there was a time when BW did tell people this won't work properly. 

 

 

 

The problem is because everything has all got a bit exciting and people getting a bit political, claiming rights and being generally noisy it all comes up on radars. 

 

 

 

It may be difficult but not impossible. I have met two separate CCers this year who proudly told me about their offspring who were about to go to university (and Oxbridge to boot!) after having been educated whilst living aboard. In one case at least the result was achieved after obtaining a scholarship to a prestigious fee paying school accessible from the canal. 

2 hours ago, agg221 said:

I do not have a widebeam and cannot think of any circumstances under which I would ever do so, so my thoughts are not based on personal gain.

 

On the one hand, widebeams occupy more space on the water. That means they use more water per lock cycle than a pair of narrow beam boats, they occupy more space in a marina mooring and they prevent double-mooring online. They also cause a level of inconvenience to other users in less well dredged channels (exacerbated in slab sided boats which are not really designed to move) and in passing certain parts of the system such as Braunston tunnel.

BUT

On the other hand, they do not put more pressure on services such as water, rubbish and elsan points, there are not that many locations outside London and parts of the K&A where breasting up is a necessity and occupying more space in a marina is only relevant to the marina operator, not CRT. How many times do narrowboats actually encounter another boat to share locks with? We sometimes do but often don't. Additionally, there are large parts of the network where they cannot go and many of these are the older canals with higher cost for infrastructure for heritage reasons and because, unlike rivers, almost all of which are widebeam, they do not have a natural water supply. It clearly wouldn't put anything like the pressure on the system for a widebeam to cc around the Trent, Calder and Hebble, Aire and Calder and the Ouse as it does for a narrowboat to do the same around the Oxford and Coventry.

 

I am not putting forward any particular suggestion for change here, just noting that there are some points which could be made. Actually, they sit rather in favour of regional charging but not assuming the same rate for all regions?

 

Alec

I thought that the established formula for water used per lock cycle expended on the weight of the displacement so no difference at all for equivalent 'tonnage'.

[magnetman]

Yes it can be done and is a l

ot easier now than it used to be. 

[Alan de Enfield]

4 minutes ago, magnetman said:

Yes it can be done and is a l

ot easier now than it used to be. 

 

Particularly now C&RT have issued a 'get out of jail free card' telling them there is no need to comply with the law during term time.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

51 minutes ago, Colin Brendan said:

No - like most people - sustaining the place I live is pretty important to me. The problem I have is the organisation who run it don't want me or the CCer community to exist. Not dissimilar from this forum I think. In fact, maybe I took a wrong turn coming here! The cabal seems fairly fixed! And they do say no useful debate happens on social media. I guess they are right. If crt tried to work with ccers for once this would be a whole different story. Like many ccer and hmers alike - I will do everything I can to support the canals, but cannot support CRT with their current discriminatory agenda.

 

And the thing no-one seems to be addressing - how come IWA, NABO, K&A Boaters, nbta, and AWA all came out against the surcharge? These orgs represent hmers too?

I don’t think so at all, it’s good to get a new voice on here, can’t say I agree with everything you say 

but I am very much on your side of the fence 👍

I’m keeping out  of these discussions now, they just go around in circles and get no where,

there are 2 or 3 posters who have the loudest voices yet do very little or no boating at all on the inland waterways,

 

 

 

[phillarrow]

26 minutes ago, Colin Brendan said:

It is the unanimity of your reactions that makes it a cabal.

 

And yes, my psychological quirks are many, and often found in child hood to some extent, as most psychological quirks are - all part of the human tapestry.

 

though, I really do suggest turning that lense on yourself at some point - having listened to your rather imposing words, 'boss', I find myself being so very glad that I am not one of your 'girls'.

When does a consensus become a cabal?

 

I've got no skin in this game but I've read this thread with interest. As a complete outsider, what I see is perfectly rational, coherent arguments against your viewpoint. 

 

It looks as if, because you've failed to produce the same level of coherence in your counter arguments, you've failed to change the opinion of those who are posting (or someone like me, who's so far just been reading without posting). 

 

None of this makes it a cabal, it just means that either the other posters are better than you at explaining the rationale behind their viewpoints, or that your own rationale is too fundamentally flawed to allow you to do so.

Edited December 16, 2023 by phillarrow
Grammar

[magnetman]

Also it doesn't make any difference whether or not someone else agrees with you. Its just a text based internet forum. 

[Barneyp]

1 hour ago, Colin Brendan said:

........

It's just the thin end of the wedge though, a way of pricing out the current ccer community

If by "the current CCer community" you mean those who declare CC but hardly ever move and leave their belonging strewn across the towpath then I think that would be a good thing. Their presence puts the general public of visiting the canals which will weaken the case for the government subsidy and thus endanger the future of the canals. ( I'm sure you are aware that income from boaters only accounts for a small fraction of CRT income)

 

If on the other hand you mean people who genuinely move around and don't cause a problem then surely the increases in licence fees are to protect their way of life by ensuring the ongoing maintenance of the canals.

[magnetman]

Very good point about public perceptions. 

 

When I first moved onto a boat, being a scruffy boater once amiably described as a 'posh pie quay', I wondered how this might all pan out with Joe public and their view of it. 

 

Nobody likes pie quays. That is a given. It would be very sad if public perception moved towards this outcome for people living on boats. I think it could happen now that more and more people are being encouraged to use towpaths.

 

Who wants this to happen? 

Edited December 16, 2023 by magnetman

[davidg]

41 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

I thought that the established formula for water used per lock cycle expended on the weight of the displacement so no difference at all for equivalent 'tonnage'.

 

Much better than that. The water used in filling a lock (and the water tipped into the lower pound when emptying) depends only on the height difference between the pounds and the lock length x width. The displacement of the boats in the lock makes no difference, you are not filling a completely empty lock with a boat, or 2 boats, or no boats in it.

[Allan(nb Albert)]

22 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Particularly now C&RT have issued a 'get out of jail free card' telling them there is no need to comply with the law during term time.

I think you have to look at what the law actually says Alan. Perhaps also look at previous posts I have made on why it says what it says.

The 1995 Act is a private Act. It does not say what parliament wants but rather what British Waterways could get parliament to agree to.

Whilst BW wanted all boaters to have a home mooring (as specified in the original Bill) they failed to convince a parliamentary committee that this was desirable or needed.

In the case that you mention, CRT were unable to show that place meant an area defined by CRT but perhaps more to the point they were unable to show that the boat in question had moored unreasonably in a place for more than 14 days.

Quite simply the law allows those without a home mooring to moor for an unspecified period of more than 14 days if it is reasonable.

CRT's decission not to appeal was, I suggest, pragmatic because it would be difficult to convince a higher court on the reasonableness issue or definition of place. 

 

[Arthur Marshall]

2 hours ago, Colin Brendan said:

No - like most people - sustaining the place I live is pretty important to me. The problem I have is the organisation who run it don't want me or the CCer community to exist.

And there lies the rub, which you refuse to address. What is this "place where I live"? If you claim to be a continuous cruiser, then you haven't got any place other than your boat. You certainly haven't got a residential area. If you have, you are breaking the law. And cheating CRT.

The other nonsense is the CCer community. There isn't one. There's a lot of disparate individuals, some squatting illegally, some enjoying cruises, some bending the law as far as they can. There's rich retirees on extended trips, broke blokes in knackered hulks with crap all over the towpath, others shuffling three miles once a fortnight and others living in nice houses nipping down to the boat every few weeks to move it over a weekend. A community has to be cohesive, with things in common. The best thing about boaters are that we are an independently minded lot. I'd be intrigued to know who is included in this community of yours , and who you exclude from it.

An odd fact is that all the moaning about "divisiveness" seems to be coming from CCers who don't want to move much stirring against moorers. We're the guys keeping CRT's coffers filled. I've never yet heard a moorer complain about cruisers, though admittedly we get fed up with seeing boats dumped on the towpath, unused, or sitting for free on the towpath for months on end opposite paid moorings. You can see why CRT got fed up with it, too.

2 hours ago, Colin Brendan said:

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Arthur Marshall

[agg221]

1 hour ago, Mike Todd said:

I thought that the established formula for water used per lock cycle expended on the weight of the displacement so no difference at all for equivalent 'tonnage'.

I believe that is correct. My point was that in consequence different types of boat will use different volumes of water. The unknown is whether the average (mean) narrowboat has more or less than half the displacement of the average widebeam. I am presuming more, on the grounds that the average length of narrowboats is likely to be around 50' (not tested, but 57' is a very popular length and has been for many years) and the average length of a widebeam is more like 60' as they have generally been built by a smaller number of builders over a shorter period. However, the average beam of a narrowboat is 7' whereas the average beam of a widebeam is not 14', more like 12'. Not allowing for swims (which given how bluff many modern boats are seems like it wouldn't change the figures much), that gives a surface area of 350sq.ft for a narrowboat and 600sq.ft for a widebeam. Assuming the same draft, that would mean the widebeam uses more water per lock than a pair of narrowboats.

 

My figures could be wrong, but I don't know where to get better data from and the difference appears to be sufficient that the principle would still apply if there was considerable variance.

 

What probably makes more difference though is that to lock through two widebeams takes about twice as much water as to lock through two narrowboats (should two come along at once and be going the same way).

Alec

Edited December 16, 2023 by agg221

[Alan de Enfield]

27 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:

I think you have to look at what the law actually says Alan. Perhaps also look at previous posts I have made on why it says what it says.

The 1995 Act is a private Act. It does not say what parliament wants but rather what British Waterways could get parliament to agree to.

Whilst BW wanted all boaters to have a home mooring (as specified in the original Bill) they failed to convince a parliamentary committee that this was desirable or needed.

In the case that you mention, CRT were unable to show that place meant an area defined by CRT but perhaps more to the point they were unable to show that the boat in question had moored unreasonably in a place for more than 14 days.

Quite simply the law allows those without a home mooring to moor for an unspecified period of more than 14 days if it is reasonable.

CRT's decission not to appeal was, I suggest, pragmatic because it would be difficult to convince a higher court on the reasonableness issue or definition of place. 

 

 

I think you may be misunderstanding to what I am referring.

Nothing to do with the 1995 Act

 

Recently (a few years ago) an MP received a letter from a constituent who lived on a boat claiming she was being discrimated against due to having a child.

MP took up the case, and long story short C&RT produced a powerpoint presentation explaining that during term time a 'parent' only needed to move three miles but would be expected to 'make up for it' in the holidays.

 

Extract from the Powerpoint presentation :

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited December 16, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[IanD]

16 minutes ago, agg221 said:

I believe that is correct. My point was that in consequence different types of boat will use different volumes of water. The unknown is whether the average (mean) narrowboat has more or less than half the displacement of the average widebeam. I am presuming more, on the grounds that the average length of narrowboats is likely to be around 50' (not tested, but 57' is a very popular length and has been for many years) and the average length of a widebeam is more like 60' as they have generally been built by a smaller number of builders over a shorter period. However, the average beam of a narrowboat is 7' whereas the average beam of a widebeam is not 14', more like 12'. Not allowing for swims (which given how bluff many modern boats are seems like it wouldn't change the figures much), that gives a surface area of 350sq.ft for a narrowboat and 600sq.ft for a widebeam. Assuming the same draft, that would mean the widebeam uses more water per lock than a pair of narrowboats.

 

My figures could be wrong, but I don't know where to get better data from and the difference appears to be sufficient that the principle would still apply if there was considerable variance.

 

What probably makes more difference though is that to lock through two widebeams takes about twice as much water as to lock through two narrowboats (should two come along at once and be going the same way).

Alec

This whole idea that boat displacement has any effect on water usage in a lock is wrong, the above post which says it's just lock area x lock fall is correct.

 

Imagine you're going down and the lock is full. When you go into the lock the water level doesn't change, regardless of the size of boat. Now empty the lock, the water level (drawn from below the boat) falls by the drop regardless of size of boat, so the water used is the same. Now open the bottom gates; moving the boat out of the lock doesn't change the water level.

 

One lock turn -- in either direction -- uses the same amount of water whether the lock has one or two narrowboats or one wideboat in it, or indeed no boat at all.

[MtB]

1 hour ago, IanD said:

This whole idea that boat displacement has any effect on water usage in a lock is wrong, the above post which says it's just lock area x lock fall is correct.

 

Imagine you're going down and the lock is full. When you go into the lock the water level doesn't change, regardless of the size of boat. Now empty the lock, the water level (drawn from below the boat) falls by the drop regardless of size of boat, so the water used is the same. Now open the bottom gates; moving the boat out of the lock doesn't change the water level.

 

One lock turn -- in either direction -- uses the same amount of water whether the lock has one or two narrowboats or one wideboat in it, or indeed no boat at all.

 

Quite a few bright people on here seem to have remarkable difficulty grasping the logic you and Davidg have explained. 

 

[Allan(nb Albert)]

50 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

I think you may be misunderstanding to what I am referring.

Nothing to do with the 1995 Act

 

Recently (a few years ago) an MP received a letter from a constituent who lived on a boat claiming she was being discrimated against due to having a child.

MP took up the case, and long story short C&RT produced a powerpoint presentation explaining that during term time a 'parent' only needed to move three miles but would be expected to 'make up for it' in the holidays.

 

Extract from the Powerpoint presentation :

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sorry Alan. I thought you were refering to a court case. However, my post may explain why CRT reacted in the way that it did to the MP's letter.