Licences

[magnetman]

It seems odd if the aim was to get money in. This does not seem to generate much at all. 

 

It would do it these were increases applied to all licences with cc and wide bean surcharges on top. This is how I read the original statement 

 

 

 

Surely it is a drop in the ocean compared with what the CRT actually need. 

 

 

 

 

[Allan(nb Albert)]

25 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

If I'm working it out correctlry, that formula gives a 200% increase over the 5 years - that is more in line with what I anticipated and almost aligns with the original BW proposals of a 2.5x multiplier.

 

So a licence costing £1000 today will be £2000 by 2028

It rather depends on how it is calculated ...

Based on CPI of 6% each year and CRT deciding an "above inflation" figure of 8%, most boaters would be paying £1,470 instead of £1000 after five years.

Those without a "home mooring" would be paying £1,837 or £2,151 depending on how the surcharge was applied.

Have not checked the above ....... 

[magnetman]

It seems to me the CRT need to hit a bit harder if they are to survive financially. 

 

I recall Nigel Moore referring to the problem of impecuniosity and what it could mean for canals.

 

I assume people who are arguing against significant increases in licence fees are not particularly interested in the status of the canals. They would rather direct blame at management and watch dereliction take hold. 

 

At the end of the day £1,000 per yar to access what must be well over a thousand miles of inland waterways is actually a ridiculous bargain. This sort of bargain does not exist usually. Its a pretty large network. 

 

Couple that with the idea that it can also be the rent for your accommodation and you pay no local taxes and it makes anyone moaning about big increases really look a bit silly. 

 

It is far too cheap. 

 

 

 

 

[Rambling Boater]

4 hours ago, MartynG said:

Feel free to make a donation.

 

I wonder how many of those who seem to think the surcharge increases are a great thing, put anything into the C&RT pot financially or with their time these days?

 

I guess some do, and some don't.

[IanD]

Just now, Rambling Boater said:

 

I wonder how many of those who seem to think the surcharge increases are a great thing, put anything into the C&RT pot financially or with their time these days?

 

I guess some do, and some don't.

 

I'm not sure many people think the surcharge increases are "a great thing", the consultation results show they think they're the least bad way of CART raising more money from the license fees and are "fairer" than the current license fee structure.

 

Unsurprisingly, those who will end up paying more -- especially CCers and wideboat owners -- disagree...

[magnetman]

£13k per annum goes from my bank account to the CRT (CRT residential mooring in inner London and the licence). 

 

I'm sure there are people who do far more than this and give up their time.

 

 

 

 

Oh and I pay £1000 council tax on top of that. 

 

Yes I know I like boats. 

 

 

 

 

Cost increases are never a great thing but if the canals need funding then in reality it is sensible for people on boats -who care about the future of canals- to pay more. If you have no money the state will pay.

 

There is a problem here. Regardless of what anyone thinks of Parry et al the word declassification has been used in public interview. Bad Things may be coming soon. 

 

I realise that an awful lot of people living on boats don't give a shit about the long term status of canals they are just there because it is cheap accomodation. 

 

That is just how it is. 

 

 

If I were running the CRT (I am not) and a group decided to go unlicensed I would just find a reason to dewater the pound.

See how they like sitting in stinking mud rather than floating on water. 

 

 

[Rambling Boater]

4 minutes ago, magnetman said:

£13k per annum goes from my bank account to the CRT (CRT residential mooring in inner London and the licence). 

 

I'm sure there are people who do far more than this and give up their time.

 

 

 

 

Oh and I pay £1000 council tax on top of that. 

 

Yes I know I like boats. 

 

 

How much is a small flat overlooking the Thames these days?

😀👍

 

Personally I think giving up time is more beneficial for most good causes. At the end of the day, someone has got to actually DO something on the front line.

 

I reckon many boaters (especially CC'ers) are in a good position to help out with basic maintenance. Years ago this was suggested to C&RT management, but for some strange reason ignored.

 

I'm sure some of us here have management and engineering skills which could help. Or even some garden shears.

 

It seems many canal renovation projects rely on the time of volunteers, and yes, finacial input too. Maybe if C&RT really have a financial hole, they would jump at the chance to do the same?

[magnetman]

It is a good suggestion. 

 

Don't know how much a flat overlooking the thames is but I have no interest in living in a flat. 

 

I do prefer the country estate boat and spend as much time as possible here but for certain obscure reasons must maintain a residence in the capital. 

 

Interesting idea to have people on boats doing maintenance work on a voluntary basis. The CRT have enough volunteers annoying boaters by telling them how to operate locks but in a lot of cases the volunteers are clueless. 

 

I think letting a load of clueless volunteers loose could actually be quite dangerous. 

 

How would one find out if they actually knew anything? Some people are able to present as knowledgeable and competent when they aren't. 

 

Mind you to be fair anything would be better than parasite subcontractors !

[Ewan123]

1 hour ago, magnetman said:

It seems to me the CRT need to hit a bit harder if they are to survive financially. 

 

I recall Nigel Moore referring to the problem of impecuniosity and what it could mean for canals.

 

I assume people who are arguing against significant increases in licence fees are not particularly interested in the status of the canals. They would rather direct blame at management and watch dereliction take hold. 

 

At the end of the day £1,000 per yar to access what must be well over a thousand miles of inland waterways is actually a ridiculous bargain. This sort of bargain does not exist usually. Its a pretty large network. 

 

Couple that with the idea that it can also be the rent for your accommodation and you pay no local taxes and it makes anyone moaning about big increases really look a bit silly. 

 

It is far too cheap. 

 

 

 

 

As a CCer I can't help but somewhat agree - even if I'd like to continue enjoying the lower cost, these suggested numbers are really remarkably palatable for me. Perhaps being a liveaboard it seems more reasonable, considering what I get in return for that licence fee. An extra grand a year isn't nothing, but in the context of everything else it's not too dramatic.

 

If these figures are indeed realistic, it seems a very softly-softly approach to reduce the likelihood of people dodging payment or leaving the waterways - after all, you probably don't need many fewer boat licences to make a higher licence fee counter-productive.

[Rambling Boater]

2 minutes ago, magnetman said:

 

Don't know how much a flat overlooking the thames is but I have no interest in living in a flat.

Neither do I, or live in a marina surrounded by other boats. That's why CC'ing suits some people but not others.

[Ewan123]

10 minutes ago, Rambling Boater said:

I reckon many boaters (especially CC'ers) are in a good position to help out with basic maintenance. Years ago this was suggested to C&RT management, but for some strange reason ignored.

I know I could look harder, but as a CCer liveaboard I do wish it were a bit easier to find things to join in with. Constantly moving around does make it more challenging to find volunteering 'events' to get stuck in with.

Maybe there could be "roaming volunteers" with a list of available tasks around the network that could be claimed by them as and when they come across one nearby.

[magnetman]

1 minute ago, Rambling Boater said:

Neither do I, or live in a marina surrounded by other boats. That's why CC'ing suits some people but not others.

My London boat is on a mooring surrounded by canalside flats ! 

 

The basic point about cc ing is that it is far too cheap. This will cause a bias and unexpected problems will occur. 

 

When I say unexpected I mean things a lot of people might not have thought of but are obvious when you think about it.

 

A grand a yar is just like paying council tax, which you still don't have to pay. 

 

 

 

 

"That's why CC'ing suits some people but not others." 

 

This is a fallacious argument when you take into account the financial incentive. I would wager that for the vast majority of people living on boats the CC'ing does NOT suit them but is a compromise born out of financial considerations. 

 

This is where the problem is. 

 

Over time the CRT are going to have endlessly massive costs associated with dealing with this. 

 

 

 

 

As old boats get older and people get older you get the dual problems of how to deal with the housing needs of the ageing boat dwellers and on top of that as licence costs go up you get the risk of worthless old boats simply being abandoned. Who pays to remove abandoned boats? Surely not. 

 

 

[Rambling Boater]

8 minutes ago, Ewan123 said:

Maybe there could be "roaming volunteers" with a list of available tasks around the network that could be claimed by them as and when they come across one nearby.

Good idea, the hard part would be persuading C&RT.

 

I've heard the H&S and training arguments before, but as I say, those arguments don't seem to stop the various renovation projects around the country.

 

Perhaps if C&RT was more like a real charity and less of a government political arm, it might just work.

[Alan de Enfield]

49 minutes ago, magnetman said:

nteresting idea to have people on boats doing maintenance work on a voluntary basis. The CRT have enough volunteers annoying boaters by telling them how to operate locks but in a lot of cases the volunteers are clueless. 

 

I think letting a load of clueless volunteers loose could actually be quite dangerous. 

 

How would one find out if they actually knew anything? Some people are able to present as knowledgeable and competent when they aren't. 

 

When you look into the C&RT accounts, you will notice that "volunteering hours", are some 40,000 hours below target, and, the number of "actively donating friends' has not only decreased year on year but is also 20% (5,500 'friends') below the 2022-23 target.

 

From their accounts :

 

The greatest concern surrounds the number of Friends actively donating to the Trust, which fell during the year and was lower than target. This reflects in part the tough economic backdrop. 

Volunteer hours were below target. However, numbers are recovering well after dropping during the Covid-affected period

 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

3 hours ago, magnetman said:

£13k per annum goes from my bank account to the CRT (CRT residential mooring in inner London and the licence). 

 

I'm sure there are people who do far more than this and give up their time.

 

 

 

 

Oh and I pay £1000 council tax on top of that. 

all relative though ain’t it,

I don’t want to live in London,

 

And neither do I want a home mooring, anywhere,

so I pay £0 👍

 

occasionally I’ll dump the boat in a mariner while I go on holiday and pay whatever the rate is, 

 

we make our own choices

 

3 hours ago, Ewan123 said:

I know I could look harder, but as a CCer liveaboard I do wish it were a bit easier to find things to join in with. Constantly moving around does make it more challenging to find volunteering 'events' to get stuck in with.

Maybe there could be "roaming volunteers" with a list of available tasks around the network that could be claimed by them as and when they come across one nearby.

 

This is probably worthy of a thread of it’s own. 
might be worth getting in touch with Canal Societies?

before you pass through their area to offer them a help. 

 

 

 

[Paul C]

Until the figures are actually announced, it’s all guessing or speculation???

[Arthur Marshall]

7 hours ago, wandering snail said:

 

Deleted.

Edited October 3, 2023 by Arthur Marshall

[Allan(nb Albert)]

3 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

When you look into the C&RT accounts, you will notice that "volunteering hours", are some 40,000 hours below target, and, the number of "actively donating friends' has not only decreased year on year but is also 20% (5,500 'friends') below the 2022-23 target.

 

From their accounts :

 

The greatest concern surrounds the number of Friends actively donating to the Trust, which fell during the year and was lower than target. This reflects in part the tough economic backdrop. 

Volunteer hours were below target. However, numbers are recovering well after dropping during the Covid-affected period

 

What CRT do not make clear is that they spent £3.4m to raise £2.8m of voluntary income (mainly Friends) compared to £2.9m to raise £3.0m the previous year. 

However, losing £600,000 on Friends is not really a problem when viewed against the fall in asset value of £167m and a £7m provision being made for one of the joint venture companies.




 

[Unicorn Stampede]

45 minutes ago, Paul C said:

Until the figures are actually announced, it’s all guessing or speculation???

 

I posted it, because the NABO reported it after holding a meeting with one of the CRT directors.

 

I wouldn't have if I felt it was pure guess work, but it felt like it came from a reasonable source.

 

I guess it's fair though that nothing has been officially confirmed by CRT so perhaps it wasn't worth mentioning.

[magnetman]

It was good to put it on here. 

 

The more discussion the better .

 

To my clueless eyes it really did initially look like what they were saying was that boat licence fees would go up by 5 percent -above inflation- each yar for 5 yars. This has already been announced in the CRT email we all received but without an actual figure "

 

The word 'surcharge' is interesting because of course a 5 percent increase over inflation is exactly that. A surcharge. 

 

It seems to me that in this story there are three different 'surcharges'. One is the addition of above inflation increase to basic canal licence fee. The second one is the cc er surcharge and the third one is the wide bean surcharge which already exists and is going to be improved. 

 

One does wonder which one is actually being referred to in this NABO leak. It can"t be all of them.

 

If this was the cc er surcharge did they get any info on the wide bean surcharge increase or how much standard canal boat licences are going up above inflation ? 

Edited October 3, 2023 by magnetman
minor addition and removes the cauliflower references

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

8 hours ago, magnetman said:

£13k per annum goes from my bank account to the CRT (CRT residential mooring in inner London and the licence). 

 

I'm sure there are people who do far more than this and give up their time.

 

 

 

 

Oh and I pay £1000 council tax on top of that. 

 

Yes I know I like boats. 

 

I thought with what you’ve said previously all your boating costs were paid through the state benefits system, so not really going out of your bank account.

 I imagine it would be different if you weren’t on benefits and paid for your boating, could you still afford it if you weren’t claiming the benefits?

[magnetman]

This is why I specially said 'out of my bank account' rather than 'I pay'.  It does come out of my bank account. 

 

 

It doesn't make any difference whether I can afford it because if I can't and can demonstrate this then I can claim Universal credit to pay for it. 

 

QED. 

 

I'm not at all concerned where the money comes from. 

 

Well I wouldn't like it to come from Thames Water shares or the like ! 

 

 

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

8 hours ago, magnetman said:

Cost increases are never a great thing but if the canals need funding then in reality it is sensible for people on boats -who care about the future of canals- to pay more. If you have no money the state will pay.

 What you have to realise not all boaters have free access to State benefits and a licence increase to you will make no difference as the benefits system will pay it, in most cases the State will not pay if you can’t afford a licence increase, they wont pay my licence or mooring fees if I can’t afford them and I imagine the majority of boaters won’t be able to get these paid for by the benefits system. I don’t think it’s as easy as you think.

Edited October 3, 2023 by BoatinglifeupNorth

[magnetman]

I've been paying my licence fees and moorings for decades but major health problems, unusually stubborn personal behaviour and unexpected legal issues have caused moderate hardship which I did not expect. So I am eligible to have my housing costs paid which is boat licence and mooring. 

 

I still have the country estate to fall back on so all is not lost - I did no tell them about this. Maybe it is fraud or I'm making it up as I go along. 

 

It is an unusual situation but if you can't afford your housing and can prove it then it will get paid by the state. 

 

This is why the benefit system exists. 

 

If you can afford it then you pay for it. 

 

Have you tried applying for Universal Credit ? Assuming you live on your boat, have low or no income and limited savings you may well find you are in fact eligible. 

 

If you don't live on the boat then it is. luxury and the costs are liable to rise so the luxury may be lost. That is life. 

 

 

Its not all that complicated but I admit with my health issues I suppose I might fall into a slightly unusual group.

 

The interesting thing is once you are on it your housing costs are paid because the system is not allowed to make you homeless. 

 

You just need a Good Friend to pay the monthly allowance in cash

 

In other news...

 

 

 

 

 

 

[TheBiscuits]

10 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

What you have to realise not all boaters have free access to State benefits and a licence increase to you will make no difference as the benefits system will pay it,

 

I'd guess from the demographics that there's more boaters get paid by the state than not.  You do realise that the state pension is a benefit don't you?  In fact it's more than half of the entire benefits bill.

 

I'd further go out on a limb and say that those in receipt of state pension who can afford a two hundred grand boat are having it considerably easier than those who just about managed to get hold of a "project boat" and get Universal Credit.

 

It's not just green eyed envy, and before the personal attacks begin I'd like to point out that my predicted date for receiving the state pension has now been pushed back three times.  It's likely to get pushed back again, and to be truthful I'm not expecting to ever get it.

 

There's not been a corresponding discount on my National Insurance or income tax either!