Licence increase announced 2024-25

[Arthur Marshall]

2 hours ago, MtB said:

 

It will make feck all difference. They need tens or hundreds of £millions.

 

These trivial increases will rake in little more than a £1m or three by my arithmetic. 

I do think it's a fairly hamfisted attempt to make the many people taking the mickey out of the CC rules make a bit more of a contribution, and also to encourage a couple of them to get a mooring. The actual base licence increase must be less than most of us were both expecting and willing to pay - I'm possibly one of the least well off boaters on here and was expecting a 10% rise at least. It certainly won't get any regular boater selling up out of economic necessity.

 

[Momac]

8 hours ago, nealeST said:

I cycle along the L&L from Crosby boundary through Litherland to Bootle most days currently. Huge time saver, no cars or buses to worry about and as the signposts inform me, part of a recognised national cycle route. It’s splendid apart from dodging potholes but with so much practice I’m able to anticipate them the whole route now. If I were to pay I’d be unhappy with potholes. Additionally, I get to share the roads with dangerous traffic for free…I’m not sure you can have a charge for cycling a potholed towpath whilst road use is free? I’m happy to contribute a fee but how much could it possibly be? And who is going to know or find out at 7am in Litherland all through the winter??

The roads presumably have more potholes than the towpath.

If you are not happy with paying for a facility with defects I presume you are also not happy with paying a license fee for a defective canal system.

8 hours ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

 

Let’s hope this little extra in their coffers goes to towards some improvements/repairs

”And there goes a flying pig..” to quote Arthur. 

the whinging from either sides will never stop, 

we thrive on it,

If you go online you can make one off contributions or sign for monthly donations. 
 

I don't think it will have much impact other than possible reduced boat numbers which I expect would be a good outcome from C&RT's perspective.

[IanD]

8 minutes ago, MartynG said:

The roads presumably have more potholes than the towpath.

If you are not happy with paying for a facility with defects I presume you are also not happy with paying a license fee for a defective canal system.

So let's get this right -- on one hand you're (justifiably) complaining about the state of the canals, but on the other hand you're castigating CART for asking boaters to pay a bit more to contribute towards trying to fix it?

 

As for the comments about "it's pointless, it'll only raise a tiny amount", this is the exact excuse used when objecting to any measures here to reduce global warming. And the answer is exactly the same -- no one contributor will fix the problem, a bit more money has to come from all sources of income for CART, including boaters.

Edited November 28, 2023 by IanD

[Momac]

5 minutes ago, IanD said:

So let's get this right -- on one hand you're (justifiably) complaining about the state of the canals, but on the other hand you're castigating CART for asking boaters to pay a bit more to contribute towards trying to fix it?

 

As for the comments about "it's pointless, it'll only raise a tiny amount", this is the exact excuse used when objecting to any measures here to reduce global warming. And the answer is exactly the same -- no one contributor will fix the problem, a bit more money has to come from all sources of income for CART, including boaters.

That's right.

It's been pay more and receive less for some years now. There were large license fee increases in the last few years with reduced services.  

What makes you think this time there will be any improvements. If there are improvements I will be happier about paying more.

[Arthur Marshall]

53 minutes ago, MartynG said:

That's right.

It's been pay more and receive less for some years now. There were large license fee increases in the last few years with reduced services.  

What makes you think this time there will be any improvements. If there are improvements I will be happier about paying more.

That's what happens with an ancient, obsolete bit of kit. To keep it functioning at all costs more and more as time goes on, especially if you want all the structural bits repaired/replaced/rebuilt to look exactly the same as when they were, by todays standards, inefficiently built of inefficient materials.

To actually maintain it in some manner suitable to a total change of use would have astronomical costs. The best you can really expect is a managed decline.

In a country that can't even maintain its roads, do you seriously expect a rich bloke's toy to get much support?

[Momac]

39 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

. The best you can really expect is a managed decline.

 

That's been the case for some time. 

So it will be more of the same 'pay more and receive less'.

 

[IanD]

46 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

That's what happens with an ancient, obsolete bit of kit. To keep it functioning at all costs more and more as time goes on, especially if you want all the structural bits repaired/replaced/rebuilt to look exactly the same as when they were, by todays standards, inefficiently built of inefficient materials.

To actually maintain it in some manner suitable to a total change of use would have astronomical costs. The best you can really expect is a managed decline.

In a country that can't even maintain its roads, do you seriously expect a rich bloke's toy to get much support?

 

Agreed -- but complaining about this while whingeing about being asked to pay a bit more to try and slow the decline is just hoping -- in vain -- that it'll all somehow be Somebody Else's Problem... 😞

 

I think boaters should be thankful that CART didn't have the balls to do what is *really* needed, even bigger license fee increases for everyone -- and even more so for CCers and widebeams -- brought in much more rapidly...

 

1 minute ago, MartynG said:

That's been the case for some time. 

So it will be more of the same 'pay more and receive less'.

 

Yes. Because that's the world we actually live in, not the one we might wish we lived in... 😞

Edited November 28, 2023 by IanD

[Jerra]

7 minutes ago, MartynG said:

That's been the case for some time. 

So it will be more of the same 'pay more and receive less'.

 

Probably but at least we can hope that with more cash the managed decline will be a bit slower.

 

Incidentally, we are paying more for less in all sorts of ways in everyday life from council tax for fewer services through to snacks shrinking in size while increasing in price.   It seems unavoidable in today's world.

[Col_T]

35 minutes ago, Jerra said:

Probably but at least we can hope that with more cash the managed decline will be a bit slower.

Unfortunately not, as these license increases are an attempt to mitigate the effect of the reduction in DEFRA grant.

[IanD]

40 minutes ago, Jerra said:

Probably but at least we can hope that with more cash the managed decline will be a bit slower.

 

Incidentally, we are paying more for less in all sorts of ways in everyday life from council tax for fewer services through to snacks shrinking in size while increasing in price.   It seems unavoidable in today's world.

Indeed we are, some of this is due to inflation but some is due to government policy -- having massively cut the central government grants to local councils over the past decade or so, it shouldn't come as any surprise that local services have been cut to the bone and beyond... 😞

 

3 minutes ago, Col_T said:

Unfortunately not, as these license increases are an attempt to mitigate the effect of the reduction in DEFRA grant.

The decline will still be slower than if the license fee had not been increased. It's all relative, a little bit more money for CART means things will be slightly less sh*t than they would otherwise have been... 😞

Edited November 28, 2023 by IanD

[nealeST]

2 hours ago, MartynG said:

The roads presumably have more potholes than the towpath.

Actually no, not on the bits of road I could use instead but not something I’d  wish to do….in the total absence of cycle paths the canal is brilliant even if defective. The Government are to spend £8.3 Billion on potholes in roads. Pity they can’t spare some of that for our canal system…

[Arthur Marshall]

8 minutes ago, nealeST said:

Actually no, not on the bits of road I could use instead but not something I’d  wish to do….in the total absence of cycle paths the canal is brilliant even if defective. The Government are to spend £8.3 Billion on potholes in roads. Pity they can’t spare some of that for our canal system…

The difference is that if a pothole damages a car (or a boke) someone can claim damages. All that happens when the canal system breaks is that some well off people have their holiday spoiled.

I don't really understand why the increase is so low. Actual inflation, on the stuff that most people have to pay, is still well over 10%. Car insurance up by 50%, can't remember what train fares are going up by. Food cost still well above the official rate.

I'm not complaining, mind.

[Ken X]

It will be interesting to see how the hire boat industry manages the increase in costs.  Whether they try to absorb the increase or pass it all on to hirers. 

 

Several companies have been trying to get us to pay for next year's holiday since July so the prices would seem to be fixed for 2024.

 

This year hasn't been the best for the industry so it will take careful managing to balance supply and demand over the next few years.

 

We are happy to pony up, for what is not a cheap holiday, with the understanding that part of our payment indirectly supports the network.  Having said that, if the reliability and availability of said network drops to a level where we are struggling to plan a holiday with reasonable expectation of achieving a journey, we would have to countenance walking away, which would be a real pity.

[IanD]

55 minutes ago, Ken X said:

It will be interesting to see how the hire boat industry manages the increase in costs.  Whether they try to absorb the increase or pass it all on to hirers. 

 

Several companies have been trying to get us to pay for next year's holiday since July so the prices would seem to be fixed for 2024.

 

This year hasn't been the best for the industry so it will take careful managing to balance supply and demand over the next few years.

 

We are happy to pony up, for what is not a cheap holiday, with the understanding that part of our payment indirectly supports the network.  Having said that, if the reliability and availability of said network drops to a level where we are struggling to plan a holiday with reasonable expectation of achieving a journey, we would have to countenance walking away, which would be a real pity.

 

Several hire companies are either closing down or are up for sale, in some cases because the owners want to retire (e.g. Shire Cruisers) but presumably in others because it's just become too hard to make a living out of it, especially in the last few years.

 

It's definitely harder planning a trip nowadays with a good chance of it not being affected by stoppages than it was even a few years ago, the backlog of maintenance is really starting to bite with more and more stoppages. But without some kind of transformation in the way CART is financed (government grant) and run (KPIs etc) it's difficult to see how this could improve significantly -- basically a big injection of cash is needed, and not just a one-off but every year, and more emphasis being placed on things needed to keep the canal infrastructure usable for boats not looking pretty for walkers and cyclists and fishermen.

 

Chances of this happening right now, nil.

 

Chances of this happening after the next GE, miniscule -- unless another Barbara Castle comes along...

Edited November 28, 2023 by IanD

[Mike Todd]

14 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I'm not sure those without a home mooring do travel more than those of us with one who actually leave and go cruising. Most CCers seem to reckon a ten mile trip every fortnight is reasonable, as indeed it is. That's about 200 miles a year, factoring in a few stoppages or just not moving in winter. I do well over ten miles a day when on holiday, so just my six weeks summer mooching about would cover more than twice that.

Of course a lot of home moorers never leave the marina, and a few CCers actually cruise constantly.

All these figures are, frankly, rubbish - as we know, 90% of statistics are inaccurate and the rest are made up, including this one. Neither CCers or home moorers are a "community", or a homogenous lump. They're all different, and you can't generalise.

This increase is a lot better than I expected, and it'll still be a hell of a lot cheaper to CC than to have a home mooring, so maybe the whinging from both sides will stop. And there goes a flying pig...

Since they are CC then I guess that technically they are 'using' the canal 100% of the year. I think there is also a figure for the % of sightings of boats not on a mooring that are no home mooring.

[IanD]

17 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

Since they are CC then I guess that technically they are 'using' the canal 100% of the year. I think there is also a figure for the % of sightings of boats not on a mooring that are no home mooring.

IIRC CART said that according to their records CCers (about 20% of boats) accounted for 75% of boat movements, which would mean that HMers (about 80% of boats) account for 25% of boat movements.

 

Of course that's an average which tells you nothing about how much one particular boat moves, but that's how statistics work... 😉

Edited November 28, 2023 by IanD

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, IanD said:

IIRC CART said that according to their records CCers (about 20% of boats) accounted for 75% of boat movements, which would mean that HMers (about 80% of boats) account for 25% of boat movements.

 

Of course that's an average which tells you nothing about how much one particular boat moves, but that's how statistics work... 😉

 

It's amazing how often the 80/20 rule (The Pareto Principle) is proven to be correct.

[IanD]

22 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

It's amazing how often the 80/20 rule (The Pareto Principle) is proven to be correct.

 

True, but that's normally applied to a single class of "things" -- for example, "20% of boaters account for 80% of lock movements". Which is of course literally true, but not the entire truth...

 

The difference here is that the 20% are CCers and the 80% are HMers. It's like saying that 20% of fish account for 80% of deaths of swimmers, without pointing out that the critical point is that they're all sharks... 😉

Edited November 28, 2023 by IanD

[Arthur Marshall]

43 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

Since they are CC then I guess that technically they are 'using' the canal 100% of the year. I think there is also a figure for the % of sightings of boats not on a mooring that are no home mooring.

So am I, then, and so is every online moorer!

[Tonka]

16 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

It'll be interesting to see how they intend to get money from towpath users as it was a condition of the transfer from BW to C&RT that the towpaths must remain "free access" (the transfer document terminology)

Charge people to exit the towpath. 

It is still free to access

1 hour ago, IanD said:

 

Several hire companies are either closing down or are up for sale, in some cases because the owners want to retire (e.g. Shire Cruisers) but presumably in others because it's just become too hard to make a living out of it, especially in the last few years.

 

It's definitely harder planning a trip nowadays with a good chance of it not being affected by stoppages than it was even a few years ago, the backlog of maintenance is really starting to bite with more and more stoppages. But without some kind of transformation in the way CART is financed (government grant) and run (KPIs etc) it's difficult to see how this could improve significantly -- basically a big injection of cash is needed, and not just a one-off but every year, and more emphasis being placed on things needed to keep the canal infrastructure usable for boats not looking pretty for walkers and cyclists and fishermen.

 

Chances of this happening right now, nil.

 

Chances of this happening after the next GE, miniscule -- unless another Barbara Castle comes along...

And that needs a change of mind in those running CRT, but you say not

[Alan de Enfield]

38 minutes ago, Tonka said:

And that needs a change of mind in those running CRT, but you say not

 

And, whilst the towpath users** are generating a grant of higher value than boating it is unlikely to change.

 

**There are no grant KPIs for keeping the navigation open, or for increasing the number of boaters, the grant related KPIs are :

1) Number and duration of unplanned towpath closures

2) Percentage of towpaths in condition A to C 

3) Number of volunter days contributed to the Trust

4) Network Stewardship score (functionality & Public benefit)

 

Other 'reportable' statistics include :

 

 

Boaters now appear, with a 'Boater survey', but still the priority is on measuring & reporting the number of visitors, and, a visitors satisfaction survey.

 

Edited November 28, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

2 hours ago, Ken X said:

It will be interesting to see how the hire boat industry manages the increase in costs.  Whether they try to absorb the increase or pass it all on to hirers. 

 

Several companies have been trying to get us to pay for next year's holiday since July so the prices would seem to be fixed for 2024.

 

This year hasn't been the best for the industry so it will take careful managing to balance supply and demand over the next few years.

 

We are happy to pony up, for what is not a cheap holiday, with the understanding that part of our payment indirectly supports the network.  Having said that, if the reliability and availability of said network drops to a level where we are struggling to plan a holiday with reasonable expectation of achieving a journey, we would have to countenance walking away, which would be a real pity.

I hadn’t given much thought to hire companies. Mainly because they have business licenses and will face the standard rise of 6% come April 2024. 

CRT have said they will leave business licenses alone because they already cost more than the leisure license. 
 

But how will that be with hire companies that have wide boats? They must surely be facing a hike/surcharge for width? 

 

A minor advantage with hire companies is possibly a saving of license fee if they are able to bring their boats out on to the hard standing over winter to black them. 

Edited November 28, 2023 by beerbeerbeerbeerbeer

[magnetman]

6 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

And, whilst the towpath users** are generating a grant of higher value than boating it is unlikely to change.

 

**There are no grant KPIs for keeping the navigation open, or for increasing the number of boaters, the grant related KPIs are :

1) Number and duration of unplanned towpath closures

2) Percentage of towpaths in condition A to C 

3) Number of volunter days contributed to the Trust

4) Network Stewardship score (functionality & Public benefit)

 

Other 'reportable' statistics include :

 

 

Boaters now appear, with a 'Boater survey', but still the priority is on measuring & reporting the number of visitors, and, a visitors satisfaction survey.

 

Also nothing about boats in their business activities at companies house.

 

 

CANAL & RIVER TRUST

Company number 07807276

 

................................

Nature of business (SIC)

• 36000 - Water collection, treatment and supply
• 52220 - Service activities incidental to water transportation
• 91020 - Museums activities
• 91030 - Operation of historical sites and buildings and similar visitor attractions

https://find-and-update.company-information.service.gov.uk/company/07807276

[Alan de Enfield]

14 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

A minor advantage with hire companies is possibly a saving of license fee if they are able to bring their boats out on to the hard standing over winter to black them. 

 

They can also claim back 16.7% of the licence fee.

Edited November 28, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

They can also claim back 16.7% of the licence fee.

you’ll have to explain that one for me please