Licences

[Mike Todd]

17 hours ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

I hope CaRT can work with Marina/mooring operations and have a better more efficient system in place if they are going to bring in Home and Non-Home based licenses, 

A high proportion of my 'sightings' are located in marinas.

16 hours ago, Paul C said:

You are de-facto not a CCer.

Were you required to use the boat bona fide for navigation, not staying in one place for more than 14 days etc etc?

It is open to CaRT to state that a Winter Mooring (perhaps re-named Winter Permit) does not confer Home Mooring status.

 

In the past CaRT have said (at last to me) that if you cease to have a HM mid licence then you should update your details. This is going to be a complication with these proposals.

[David Mack]

6 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

A high proportion of my 'sightings' are located in marinas.

In any marina subject to a Network Access Agreement, CRT have the right to enter the marina to check the boats therein are licenced. In non NAA marinas access is at the discretion of the marina operator, but I imagine many allow the spotters in anyway.

[magnetman]

2 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

 

There are actually many more objectives that were agreed by C&RT on the handover from BW :

 

 

Yes

 

yes but if you read it it says this :

 

"Our relevant charitable objects in relation to this policy are as follows:
To preserve, protect, operate and manage Inland Waterways for public benefit:
i) For navigation;
ii) For walking on towpaths; and
iii) For recreation or other leisure-time pursuits of the public in the interest of their health and social welfare."

[Mike Todd]

14 hours ago, IanD said:

They've been beaten to death many times because they're not the real reason for CARTs financial problems, they're scapegoats -- it allows people to blame CART instead of the government.

 

Outsourcing and lack of skilled personnel -- absolutely, it's the same problem as in so many other infrastructure areas (rail, buses, water...), thinking that privatisation and "the markets" will magically solve everything... 😞

But in this case it was a Gov requirement not a CaRT Management decision. 

 

My guess is that if it were the latter then we would have had a position in between - ie use of contractors when sensible(ie infrequently needed skills or those hard to manage eg large infrastructure projects) but retention of greater quantity of in house skills, esp those that can be deployed year round. The better planning of replacements and use of main season for some works is an example.

4 hours ago, magnetman said:

Yes but from your user name I am assuming you have a reasonably large boat something like 65x13ft. 

 

If I remember right the Gold licence is cheaper for boats under 11ft. A lot of canal wide bean craft are under 11ft. 

 

I didn't realise for your size boat the Gold was cheaper than the Thames. 

An arbitrary but simple solution would be to say that a Gold licence confers a maximum no of days on EA waters (assuming that a Gold is primarily for boaters whose principal use is CaRT navigations)

4 hours ago, robtheplod said:

Indeed... CRT are taking the brunt of cost of housing crisis... how many people do we see on here saying this is what they are doing. 

The Proposals documents make that clear.

[Momac]

25 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

 

 

In the past CaRT have said (at last to me) that if you cease to have a HM mid licence then you should update your details. 

This is correct but no one can possibly notice that you have not done so .

 

 

[Mike Todd]

3 hours ago, magnetman said:

 

The fuel payment for cc licence holders might be an interesting tool. What the CRT could do is put the licence fee up by £600 for people who got paid the government grant...

 

They have evidently self identified as residential users of cc licences. 

In all other walks of life apart from living in a van or being homeless there is an ongoing cost of accomodation if you don't have capital to buy to start with. Mortgage, rent or benefit payments. Why should canals be different ? 

 

The cc licence is clearly too cheap and has been for a long time. 

 

Of course the Ward problem on the K&A was related to an unlicensed boat but realistically the CRT should have a zero tolerance policy for that. 3 months and the boat is gone. Either moved by the CRT or the owner. Bye bye. 

 

Wishful thinking I know ! 

 

There is a link on the CRT page which is called equality impact assessment (EIA). Reading it is quite interesting as it includes this 

 

"Our relevant charitable objects in relation to this policy are as follows:
To preserve, protect, operate and manage Inland Waterways for public benefit:
i) For navigation;
ii) For walking on towpaths; and
iii) For recreation or other leisure-time pursuits of the public in the interest of their health and social welfare."

 

----

 

Nowhere is use of boats for housing mentioned in these charitable objects. 

 

 

 

 

It seems to me that the only valid way of interacting with people living on boats is for the CRT to get as much money as possible from them.

 

Without this advantage it is just a load of 'liveaboard gits'. 

 

 

More accurately the G case was that he failed to convince the Board that he intended to comply with the T&C's and so was refused a licence despite his offer to buy one.

[haggis]

Just pondering. While it will.be easy for checkers to find that a boat which has been licenced as a continuos cruiser is in amarina  it won't be so easy to check  that someone who has said they moor on the marina is not there and is out continuously cruising. The boat could just be out for a trip. 

the only way would be to cross check the marinade records with the C&RT ones. A time consuming job which I don't think.is done at present

i think all that the checkers do in a marina now is go round and check that each boat is licenced. 

[Chewbacka]

3 minutes ago, haggis said:

Just pondering. While it will.be easy for checkers to find that a boat which has been licenced as a continuos cruiser is in amarina  it won't be so easy to check  that someone who has said they moor on the marina is not there and is out continuously cruising. The boat could just be out for a trip. 

the only way would be to cross check the marinade records with the C&RT ones. A time consuming job which I don't think.is done at present

i think all that the checkers do in a marina now is go round and check that each boat is licenced. 

You don’t need to see a boat that has a claimed home mooring, just proof from the marina that a boat with the correct reg number is paying for a mooring.   If a claimed home mooring doesn’t exist, then they will be charged the cc price.  Much later CRT can worry about ghost moorings as that isn’t their first priority.

[Paul C]

28 minutes ago, haggis said:

 

the only way would be to cross check the marinade records with the C&RT ones. A time consuming job which I don't think.is done at present

i think all that the checkers do in a marina now is go round and check that each boat is licenced. 

 

I don't think its a time consuming job. At the moment, with no price difference, there is no particular financial incentive to do such a check. (There is a CC enforcement incentive, but that would account for a fraction of cases).

 

I believe CRT already has a database of available moorings, along with their boat/length capacity, so its a trivial job for an algorithm to determine.

[magnetman]

20 minutes ago, Paul C said:

 

I don't think its a time consuming job. At the moment, with no price difference, there is no particular financial incentive to do such a check. (There is a CC enforcement incentive, but that would account for a fraction of cases).

 

I believe CRT already has a database of available moorings, along with their boat/length capacity, so its a trivial job for an algorithm to determine.

It can't be difficult. The same thing is done with boat insurance for every licence issued. You write down insurance company, policy number and expiry date. 

 

This could easily be done with moorings. There is no point accepting a boat which claims to have a mooring off CRT water so just class them as cc er for the purpose of using CRT water. 

 

 

 

 

By definition even if someone does have a mooring off CRT water whenever they are using CRT water they are in effect continuous cruisers for the purposes of the CRT licence. 

 

 

[cuthound]

17 hours ago, nicknorman said:

I think we should remember that currently, most boats with a home mooring pay more to CRT than boats without a home mooring. And as a generalisation boats without a home mooring usually generate more CRT direct costs - more rubbish disposal, more elsan disposal, more tap water, than someone with a home mooring. Well, a home mooring in a marina anyway.

 

I am thinking of the 10% of mooring fees that most marinas have to pay to CRT. So I pay about 25% more to CRT - directly and indirectly - than someone without a home mooring. This seems an obvious anomaly.

 

This is also true for my EoG mooring.

 

I fill the boat with the water from my house before a trip and dispose of any rubbish at the end of a trip in my wheely bins, so use CRT facilities less than I would otherwise.

 

My near neighbour even has his own pump out machine installed on hos EoG mooring!

[Rambling Boater]

17 hours ago, nicknorman said:

I think we should remember that currently, most boats with a home mooring pay more to CRT than boats without a home mooring. And as a generalisation boats without a home mooring usually generate more CRT direct costs - more rubbish disposal, more elsan disposal, more tap water, than someone with a home mooring. Well, a home mooring in a marina anyway.

 

I am thinking of the 10% of mooring fees that most marinas have to pay to CRT. So I pay about 25% more to CRT - directly and indirectly - than someone without a home mooring. This seems an obvious anomaly.

 

I  think the 'anomaly' is historic. The idea of CC'ing came about because many people with a home mooring wanted to cruise the system over a long period and thought it unfair that they still had to pay for a home mooring which wasn't going to be used over that period.  
 
The facilities in most marinas are far superior than most C&RT facilities, often with the luxury of your own water tap and shore line point. Security is better and many marinas have social facilities. One can also leave the boat for more than 14 days.
 
So most boat owners in a marina get what they pay for. I'm not totally against the idea of a surcharge for those with a CC'er licence (I've been a CC'er for well over 10 years). However, the surcharge should reflect the fact that EVERY boater has access to C&RT facilities and that they are generally not as good as those in a marina.  

 

There is also of course the fact that there is nothing stopping someone with a home mooring becoming  a CC'er for a period (if personal circumstances allow). Then you have the option to keep the mooring or not.

 

Then of course there are the p takers who mess it up for the rest of us, but best not go there.

 

[Annie cariad]

Pay as you go ? We cruise at least six months of the year why do we all pay the same ???

 

Be happy to pay my cruising dues or marina floating to suit 

[Paul C]

9 minutes ago, Annie cariad said:

Pay as you go ? We cruise at least six months of the year why do we all pay the same ???

 

Be happy to pay my cruising dues or marina floating to suit 

 

Can you lift the boat out the water the other 6 months?

[magnetman]

Tolls do make sense and this is how canals were originally operated. 

 

In France the toll motorway gates are operated by a tag in your car and presumably the owner is registered to the tag in order to take payments.  

 

Maybe it is prepaid and anyone could use it. I don't know exactly how the verification works with these things but it doesn't seem to be rocket science to arrange tolls based on the time a boat remains between two sets of readers ie zones. 

 

An extra benefit of this system would be it would enable varying charges for staying in different areas based on demand. 

 

@IanD who appears to know a lot about tech stuff thinks tolls can't work. 

 

 

 

 

[Arthur Marshall]

43 minutes ago, Annie cariad said:

Pay as you go ? We cruise at least six months of the year why do we all pay the same ???

 

Be happy to pay my cruising dues or marina floating to suit 

Surely the point is that the surcharge is intended to ensure that we all do pay the same, just as we used to before mooring fees came in. All we paid then was a licence, and if we had a home mooring, rent to the landlord. Then one day we had to pay an additional whack to BW which thise without a home mooring didn't. I thought it was a mistake at the time - tgey should have just upped the licence for everyone.

[Alan de Enfield]

3 hours ago, magnetman said:

 

Yes

 

yes but if you read it it says this :

 

"Our relevant charitable objects in relation to this policy are as follows:
To preserve, protect, operate and manage Inland Waterways for public benefit:
i) For navigation;
ii) For walking on towpaths; and
iii) For recreation or other leisure-time pursuits of the public in the interest of their health and social welfare."

 

 

That maybe simply what they have chosen, but the full (Legal) document (which I have taken the extracts from) lists many more of their charitable objectives.

 

It is a 24 page document, I'm sure you'd find it interesting with much more detail of C&RT's powers and responsibilities than C&RT put out for 'public viewing'. 

 

 

 

1 hour ago, magnetman said:

By definition even if someone does have a mooring off CRT water whenever they are using CRT water they are in effect continuous cruisers for the purposes of the CRT licence. 

 

Not sure that is quite true.

The Act says you either have :(c)either—

(i)the Board are satisfied that a mooring or other place where the vessel can reasonably be kept and may lawfully be left will be available for the vessel, whether on an inland waterway or elsewhere; or

(ii)the applicant for the relevant consent satisfies the Board that the vessel to which the application relates will be used bona fide for navigation throughout the period for which the consent is valid without remaining continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances.

 

So you could keep your boat at home on a trailer and that would meet the 'option (i)' licence 

 

If you have no mooring (anywhere) then you are a 'boat without a mooring' '0ption (ii)'

 

 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[magnetman]

Trailer boats are an interesting case I agree. Maybe they will be brought into the cc er licence category or encouraged to just buy short visitor licences when they want to use the boat.

 

They (trailer boats) are by definition rather small and usually owned by people with houses so any increase in licence probably would not be too serious.

 

I suppose one does get a slight problem if someone is living on a 24ft GRP cruiser and claims it is kept off the water. Maybe the sightings records would prove otherwise.

 

 

[Paul C]

In reality there's 3 (or more) subdivisions

 

1. CCing

2. Home mooring

3. "Other place" (ie not a mooring on a CRT water - could be a trailed boat, or moored on a non-CRT water eg Bridgewater canal, EA, a seagoing boat coming in, etc)

 

2 could be split:

 

2a Home mooring of which some element of the mooring fee goes to CRT (NAA marina; online mooring where the mooring provider pays the EOG fee; online mooring where the boater pays an additional EOG fee directly to CRT; CRT managed mooring)

2b Home mooring where no element of the mooring fee finds its way to CRT, for example old marinas/wharves before the NAA agreement

 

1 is distinct from 2 and 3 for CCing enforcement purposes.

 

Now they've introduced a cost element to differentiate CCing from other arrangements, perhaps that different cost arrangement will encompass 2b and 3 as well as 1. The devil is in the detail, after all.

[Mike Todd]

3 hours ago, haggis said:

Just pondering. While it will.be easy for checkers to find that a boat which has been licenced as a continuos cruiser is in amarina  it won't be so easy to check  that someone who has said they moor on the marina is not there and is out continuously cruising. The boat could just be out for a trip. 

the only way would be to cross check the marinade records with the C&RT ones. A time consuming job which I don't think.is done at present

i think all that the checkers do in a marina now is go round and check that each boat is licenced. 

Since the criterion is 'having a home mooring' there is nothing said about how often the boat may be used. Hence there is nothing to decide should a boat be out for a long period. At least I hope so since that has been our pattern for the past few years. 

[magnetman]

As this is about revenue for the CRT it makes a lot of sense to clobber people who are not paying them enough currently. 

 

So yes, adding trailer boats and boats with moorings not paying the CRT, which I have already advocated for in this thread, does make rather a lot of sense. 

 

They need the money. 

 

 

 

 

It isn't about an individual's use of the boat and how much they are paying to use it in their chosen way. That is irrelevant. The subject is about funding for the canals which everyone who has a CRT licence presumably wants to remain available for use by future generations. 

 

The CRT have significant attractive assets. It makes sense to ensure people are paying to use them, especially in the age of impecuniosity otherwise Bad Things happen to the canal system. 

 

If the result is loss of people who really are there just because it is cheap housing then so be it. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by magnetman

[Mike Todd]

2 hours ago, Rambling Boater said:

 

I  think the 'anomaly' is historic. The idea of CC'ing came about because many people with a home mooring wanted to cruise the system over a long period and thought it unfair that they still had to pay for a home mooring which wasn't going to be used over that period.  
 
The facilities in most marinas are far superior than most C&RT facilities, often with the luxury of your own water tap and shore line point. Security is better and many marinas have social facilities. One can also leave the boat for more than 14 days.
 
So most boat owners in a marina get what they pay for. I'm not totally against the idea of a surcharge for those with a CC'er licence (I've been a CC'er for well over 10 years). However, the surcharge should reflect the fact that EVERY boater has access to C&RT facilities and that they are generally not as good as those in a marina.  

 

There is also of course the fact that there is nothing stopping someone with a home mooring becoming  a CC'er for a period (if personal circumstances allow). Then you have the option to keep the mooring or not.

 

Then of course there are the p takers who mess it up for the rest of us, but best not go there.

 

If you keep the mooring (as we do) then you always have a home mooring available (that is all that is required, not that you are always there). In the terms indicated, you never become a CCer unless you give up the home mooring. Some of us actually think that a boat is for cruising not just a weekend cottage.

1 hour ago, Paul C said:

 

Can you lift the boat out the water the other 6 months?

Some poeple do. AFAIK, the marina with a 'modern' NAA pays CaRT on the basis of the number of floating moorings, and not any hard standings.

Edited September 20, 2023 by Mike Todd

[Alway Swilby]

Nowadays we take a marina mooring for a few months in winter. It's not always the same marina although we do have a prefered one in Goole. We might be there for 3 months, sometimes 4. When we leave the marina we stop paying and leave. I notify CRT that we no longer have a home mooring. The following winter we check in to a marina again and inform CRT accordingley. We can't be unusual in doing this. Our licence expires on 31st December when we are always in a marina somewhere and so will have a home mooring at renewal time. I wonder whether we'll have to pay the CC surcharge.

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

7 minutes ago, Alway Swilby said:

Nowadays we take a marina mooring for a few months in winter. It's not always the same marina although we do have a prefered one in Goole. We might be there for 3 months, sometimes 4. When we leave the marina we stop paying and leave. I notify CRT that we no longer have a home mooring. The following winter we check in to a marina again and inform CRT accordingley. We can't be unusual in doing this. Our licence expires on 31st December when we are always in a marina somewhere and so will have a home mooring at renewal time. I wonder whether we'll have to pay the CC surcharge.

Your future experience with the new Licensing will be interesting to know. So you’ll be a home- moorer at first so should pay reduced licence, then you’ll declare yourself as a non-home moorer, so in theory you should be asked to pay the difference(more) for the remaining months left on your licence. 
Will be interesting to see what happens and how CaRT Licensing work it.

 

Edited September 20, 2023 by BoatinglifeupNorth

[Momac]

If the continuous cruiser supplement is significant I  suspect there will not be many continuous cruiser declarations after April 2024.