Licences

[frangar]

I personally would suggest charging all those welded to a towpath inside the M25 £2-£3K per year and say they don’t have to move.  This would still be cheap living for them and would be a sizeable increase in CRT coffers. No doubt NBTA would squeal but they would have the moorings they wanted. Would sort out who wanted to live afloat and those that were just freeloading. 

[Tonka]

6 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

I don't have one but that's a bit unfair -- for a few boaters like @peterboat with the space to compost the waste properly (e.g. on the bank) and then use it (e.g. on a garden) they're an excellent solution.

 

But not for most boaters on the canals who (expensively!) installed them on the assumption they could bag'n'bin the waste, now CART have banned this...

Did CRT ban it or where they advised by DEFRA to ban it ?

[IanD]

1 minute ago, Tonka said:

Did CRT ban it or where they advised by DEFRA to ban it ?

Does it make any difference? IIRC CART banned it because their waste contractors kicked up a fuss about it, but whatever the reason the effect on boaters is the same -- no more bag'n'binning... 😞

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, Tonka said:

Did CRT ban it or where they advised by DEFRA to ban it ?

 

 

I reckon it was Biffa, who pointed out that it was not allowed to be put in 'general waste'.

Human waste should be put into special tiger-striped-bags and a maximum of 7kgs per bin is allowed.

 

Since C&RT cannot enforce the use of the correct bags, or have any way of knowing when 7kgs has been deposited their only option was to ban it completely.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

10 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

I don't have one but that's a bit unfair -- for a few boaters like @peterboat with the space to compost the waste properly (e.g. on the bank) and then use it (e.g. on a garden) they're an excellent solution.

 

But not for most boaters on the canals who (expensively!) installed them on the assumption they could bag'n'bin the waste, now CART have banned this...

with space to compost properly 👍

 

but that’s not the way it’s been working (or has it?)

I understand most use a compost loo then wonder where to dump the waste ?

 

so yeah, it’s a big marketing ploy, companies are making these compo loos with no regard where the shit ends up.  

[magnetman]

10 minutes ago, frangar said:

I personally would suggest charging all those welded to a towpath inside the M25 £2-£3K per year and say they don’t have to move.  This would still be cheap living for them and would be a sizeable increase in CRT coffers. No doubt NBTA would squeal but they would have the moorings they wanted. Would sort out who wanted to live afloat and those that were just freeloading. 

Interesting idea and towpath long term moorings already exist but if you get into people living on the boats it gets awkward. 

I think some changes might occur with ordinary long term moorings. It seems to me that the CRT could put the prices up quite a lot and still have demand. 

 

 

[peterboat]

3 hours ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

I don’t see why all discounts should be retained, especially electric boats with massive diesel generators or the so called Heritage boats, maybe Heritage boats prior to say 1945, but not all. 
Lets see if the continuous moorers decrease next year.

Not everyone on here would of got it, there’s people on here who aren’t boating anymore, so useful to those who want to keep up to date with what’s going on.

500cc generator is hardly massive? It provides 6kw of electric and uses very little fuel, because of solar hardly ever run.

As an experiment I ran it last winter it used 25 litres of fuel over the 2 months solar couldn't supply my needs. The 25% discount is applied after all the other add ons so will be substantial for myself unless my new moorings off CRT waters has become vacant and then it doesn't matter. 

I have found another mooring but it's not as nice but is off tidal waters both are under half what I currently pay so it's looking very attractive 

[magnetman]

If they had ten moorings and were letting them at £5k each with people always looking to see if anything is available then they are too cheap. 

 

Presumably something is done about tracking visitors to the website detailing all the mooring assets the CRT have. 

 

The CRT need money so they will have to squeeze people with moorings as well as people without moorings. Basic demand and supply economics. 

 

The moorings should be priced so that there is availability. 

 

 

[Arthur Marshall]

2 minutes ago, magnetman said:

If they had ten moorings and were letting them at £5k each with people always looking to see if anything is available then they are too cheap. 

 

Presumably something is done about tracking visitors to the website detailing all the mooring assets the CRT have. 

 

The CRT need money so they will have to squeeze people with moorings as well as people without moorings. Basic demand and supply economics. 

 

The moorings should be priced so that there is availability. 

 

 

I presume mooring fees will go up by the same amount. Mine were (that's the fee to CRT, not the landlord) originally about a quarter of the licence fee, now they are almost as much. Which is why I suspect the surcharge for CC is going to be huge, hopefully staged.

[peterboat]

15 minutes ago, Goliath said:

with space to compost properly 👍

 

but that’s not the way it’s been working (or has it?)

I understand most use a compost loo then wonder where to dump the waste ?

 

so yeah, it’s a big marketing ploy, companies are making these compo loos with no regard where the shit ends up.  

Loads compost it properly, the majority of boaters have home moorings so probably have a house with a garden, they take the bin home and compost it in the garden hardly rocket science. My bin takes over a month to fill up and I am at the boat a lot, now CCers its difficult but can be done with the hot box method. 

[magnetman]

8 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I presume mooring fees will go up by the same amount. Mine were (that's the fee to CRT, not the landlord) originally about a quarter of the licence fee, now they are almost as much. Which is why I suspect the surcharge for CC is going to be huge, hopefully staged.

16:14 in this video is interesting. The CRT man is pointing out to the interviewer that the CRT is not a public body and therefore does not have to behave reasonably with regards to management of people living on their waterways.

 

 

Quite eye opening I think. 

 

Maybe they are going to hit hard. 

 

 

 

 

[Ewan123]

22 minutes ago, Goliath said:

with space to compost properly 👍

 

but that’s not the way it’s been working (or has it?)

I understand most use a compost loo then wonder where to dump the waste ?

 

so yeah, it’s a big marketing ploy, companies are making these compo loos with no regard where the shit ends up.  

In London it's a viable option so long as you can afford it - there is now a company there collecting and managing solid waste from separator toilets: Circular Revolution. I expect this might not catch on elsewhere though as London has the advantage of a high density of potential customers.

[magnetman]

(video is not new but interesting that there have been news stories relating to the K&A). 

 

Is the game underway perhaps. 

[IanD]

8 minutes ago, peterboat said:

Loads compost it properly, the majority of boaters have home moorings so probably have a house with a garden, they take the bin home and compost it in the garden hardly rocket science. My bin takes over a month to fill up and I am at the boat a lot, now CCers its difficult but can be done with the hot box method. 

 

IIRC the last time this was surveyed (before the CART ban) about a quarter of compost toilet users composted properly and three-quarters bag'n'binned. This may have changed since as the bag'n'binners ripped the toilets out and replaced them, or maybe some have just carried on in spite of the CART ban.

 

Either way, if you want to claim that "loads compost it properly" maybe you should provide some numbers to back this up, not just guesswork or what you and your mates next door do? 😉

Edited September 19, 2023 by IanD

[john6767]

3 hours ago, davem399 said:

I don’t get it as I’m not the designated licence holder for our shared owners boat. 

Doesn’t the licence holder share all the emails with you, that is for you to organise is it not?  Relying on a random person posting links on Facebook does not seem like a good way of getting your information.

[Unicorn Stampede]

22 minutes ago, magnetman said:

If they had ten moorings and were letting them at £5k each with people always looking to see if anything is available then they are too cheap. 

 

Presumably something is done about tracking visitors to the website detailing all the mooring assets the CRT have. 

 

The CRT need money so they will have to squeeze people with moorings as well as people without moorings. Basic demand and supply economics. 

 

The moorings should be priced so that there is availability. 

 

 

Up at Brighouse CRT basin, CRT spent a bunch of money to redo the moorings, rebuild rusted pontoons, etc after they lost a bunch of permanents (who left because of the state of it). To CRTs credit, they've mostly filled that basin now. It did take them having to reduce the cost of each mooring spot by at least £1,000 per boat. One of the few times I've seen them change up from an higher priced 'auction' to a much cheaper buy it now.

[IanD]

10 minutes ago, Ewan123 said:

In London it's a viable option so long as you can afford it - there is now a company there collecting and managing solid waste from separator toilets: Circular Revolution. I expect this might not catch on elsewhere though as London has the advantage of a high density of potential customers.

Don't know how many customers they've got, but to make the business viable their prices have just increased -- £30 for a monthly collection, £25 for fortnightly, £75 for one-off.

Edited September 19, 2023 by IanD

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

40 minutes ago, peterboat said:

500cc generator is hardly massive? It provides 6kw of electric and uses very little fuel, because of solar hardly ever run.

As an experiment I ran it last winter it used 25 litres of fuel over the 2 months solar couldn't supply my needs. The 25% discount is applied after all the other add ons so will be substantial for myself unless my new moorings off CRT waters has become vacant and then it doesn't matter. 

I have found another mooring but it's not as nice but is off tidal waters both are under half what I currently pay so it's looking very attractive 

 It’s not really about diesel generator’s, why should electric boats get a discount when they are using the exact same CaRT facilities as a normal boat?

 Parry wrote in the email:

“Most boaters without home moorings spend more time on the waterway network, and make more use of facilities,than those with a home mooring.” 

 So he’s charging/increasing their licence accordingly. So why should two boats with or without home moorings, that use the same facilities not pay the same, it makes no difference how they got to the facilities to use them, they are both using them?

 

[magnetman]

Is it because we are all* going to die in a terrible inferno if we don't replace all combustion systems with electric ?

 

*except for the ones who escape to Mars and they will probably be violently dismembered and eaten by Martians. 

 

 

[IanD]

7 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

 It’s not really about diesel generator’s, why should electric boats get a discount when they are using the exact same CaRT facilities as a normal boat?

 

3 hours ago, IanD said:

 

I agree that the electric boat discount seems unfair to everyone else, personally I would be happy if it went. But I'm pretty sure that CART want to encourage the use of electric/hybrid boats to be "green" and cut noise/fumes/pollution, maybe even with a long-term view to providing charging points (but little evidence of this network-wide), and are keeping the discount to encourage boaters to switch -- like government incentives to switch to EVs or heat-pumps.

 

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

12 minutes ago, IanD said:

But I'm pretty sure that CART want to encourage the use of electric/hybrid boats to be "green" and cut noise/fumes/pollution, maybe even with a long-term view to providing charging points (but little evidence of this network-wide), and are keeping the discount to encourage boaters to switch -- like government incentives to switch to EVs or heat-pumps.

But as you have said before, the amount of diesel boats on the canal system is quite insignificant compared to road vehicles and other fossil fuel powered non-eco transportation/vehicles in the UK.

[The Gravy Boater]

The funding "crisis" came out of the CaRT failing to renegotiate a favourable deal.  I've seen a few interviews with the current head of the CaRT. Let's just say I wasn't impressed. If you want to negotiate with a weak government when times are tough you need an attack dog. Just look at some of the public sector pay deals that have been agreed lately. 

[Ewan123]

33 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

But as you have said before, the amount of diesel boats on the canal system is quite insignificant compared to road vehicles and other fossil fuel powered non-eco transportation/vehicles in the UK.

"But them over there are polluting more than me" is a terrible argument against reducing emissions in pretty much any given case. Just because someone else is doing worse, doesn't mean that I (we/boaters) shouldn't be expected to improve ourselves.

Edited September 19, 2023 by Ewan123

[Paul C]

2 hours ago, frangar said:

I personally would suggest charging all those welded to a towpath inside the M25 £2-£3K per year and say they don’t have to move.  This would still be cheap living for them and would be a sizeable increase in CRT coffers. No doubt NBTA would squeal but they would have the moorings they wanted. Would sort out who wanted to live afloat and those that were just freeloading. 

they cant

[magnetman]

It would be even better to charge 3 grand a yar and continue with the current status around moving every 14 days and satisfying the board. 

 

Why introduce the idea you can stop moving? People have chosen to do this knowing it is cheap and knowing in life things change. Looks like a pretty handy cash cow to me. 

 

 

 

 

I reckon the CRT can milk this if they want to. People will pay up because even at 3 grand per annum it is massively cheaper than renting some hovel from a slum landlord. 

 

 

 

 

By targeting cc and wide beans the CRT have correctly identified that this is a housing topic. Housing in every other way of living involves a lot of money coming out of your pockets. 

 

 

Perhaps time the canals were taken out of some sort of protective zone and people required to pay. 

 

It makes an awful lot of sense. 

 

 

 

Edited September 19, 2023 by magnetman