Baton Twirlers Stage Protest (again)

[Naartjie - Duck Hatch]

1 hour ago, Rincewind said:

 

Agreed.

If you want to live in a society and benefit from that society then surely it is only right for you to make a financial contribution to the upkeep of that society for the good of everyone including yourself.

Even CC'rs, no matter where in the country they roam, directly benefit from the taxes most of us pay to local councils, Cost of policing, Fire & Rescue, road upkeep, rubbish removal, street lighting etc. etc. the list goes on....

When you apply for a CC license are you not declaring to the world that you no longer wish to pay your fair contribution of taxes?

 

Perhaps its about time CRT only granted CC licenses when the applicant provides proof (receipt) that a local council tax, or substantial cash contribution, has been paid for that financial year to a Local Authority (of the applicants choice).

 

There would be plenty of empty visitor moorings available then! 

Yes but in the same vein, won't the Shiny Boaters & the Mushroom Polishers also benifit from the surcharge that the Ditch Dwellers will be paying. 

Edited March 30 by Naartjie - Duck Hatch

[Paul C]

3 hours ago, Mike Todd said:

But remember that inflationary increases are on top of the 25% over 5 years

IIRC the formal wording indicates that (a) a licence is for a boat and owner combination ie it is not transferable when it changes ownership and (b) the surcharge is on a licence for a boat for which the licensee does not have a place where it can be left (in practice for periods longer than 14 days although I think it just says not having a mooring at all)

 

With reference to distinctions, in some quarters saying that a boater has a 'shiny boat' is as much a term of conscious bias as is 'tupperware boat' for others! We all have our prejudices but the real point is whether we can control and moderate them.

 

For the sake of clarity:

 

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.

 

[Arthur Marshall]

2 hours ago, Rincewind said:

Perhaps its about time CRT only granted CC licenses when the applicant provides proof (receipt) that a local council tax, or substantial cash contribution, has been paid for that financial year to a Local Authority (of the applicants choice).

 

There would be plenty of empty visitor moorings available then! 

Would cost more in bureaucracy than it would bring in, especially as just about all of it would end up being paid by the benefit system one way or another.

CC licences should only be granted to those who actually live on board for the duration of the licence. Anything else is daft.

The "thought concept" someone mentioned above, of a person with two boats, one CC registered and one home moored, is illogical. If boat A is being continually cruised, the other boat is permanently unused. If boat B is lived on, boat A can't cruise. If boat A is a leisure boat, then it can't CC. If boat B is the leisure boat, then boat A can't CC (unless holidays are always less than 14 days). Logically, both should have moorings.

I am aware that there are people on the forum who do in fact have boats A and B, registered differently. I'd be interest to read how they justify it, because I'm sure they can, though as I say , I can't see it, unless the CC boat is just dumped round the system, using the towpath as a free mooring, NBTA style, (which is why there's now a surcharge, of course).

ETA NB I don't really care much what anyone does, dumper, CCer, home moorer, shiny or yoghurt pot. Doesn't affect me much, I'm just interested in the argument/debate.

Edited March 30 by Arthur Marshall

[magnetman]

What about those of us who have the ability to be in two places at the same time?

[Arthur Marshall]

3 minutes ago, magnetman said:

What about those of us who have the ability to be in two places at the same time?

Synchronistic infandibulum, I think, invented by Vonnegut. The one point in the universe where two entirely incompatible facts can both be true at the same time.

Edited March 30 by Arthur Marshall

[Tacet]

2 hours ago, Rincewind said:

 

Agreed.

If you want to live in a society and benefit from that society then surely it is only right for you to make a financial contribution to the upkeep of that society for the good of everyone including yourself.

Even CC'rs, no matter where in the country they roam, directly benefit from the taxes most of us pay to local councils, Cost of policing, Fire & Rescue, road upkeep, rubbish removal, street lighting etc. etc. the list goes on....

When you apply for a CC license are you not declaring to the world that you no longer wish to pay your fair contribution of taxes?

 

Perhaps its about time CRT only granted CC licenses when the applicant provides proof (receipt) that a local council tax, or substantial cash contribution, has been paid for that financial year to a Local Authority (of the applicants choice).

 

Should everyone pay every type of tax every year?

[David Mack]

14 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

CC licences should only be granted to those who actually live on board for the duration of the licence. Anything else is daft.

But the 95 Act doesn't say that. Having or not having a home mooring is independent of whether the boat owner is a liveaboard or not. CRT has no legal power to restrict 'CC' licences to liveaboards.

And in practical terms it would be difficult to do so when many ccing liveaboards simultaneously claim to be living at a friend or relative's land address for the purposes of banking, insurance, registering with a GP etc.

[MtB]

44 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Synchronistic infandibulum, I think, invented by Vonnegut. The one point in the universe where two entirely incompatible facts can both be true at the same time.

 

You obviously haven't looked much at quantum physics then! 

 

 

[Arthur Marshall]

55 minutes ago, David Mack said:

But the 95 Act doesn't say that. Having or not having a home mooring is independent of whether the boat owner is a liveaboard or not. CRT has no legal power to restrict 'CC' licences to liveaboards.

And in practical terms it would be difficult to do so when many ccing liveaboards simultaneously claim to be living at a friend or relative's land address for the purposes of banking, insurance, registering with a GP etc.

Can't say I care what the Act says, as nobody else seems to, including a fair sprinkling of judges. And I said "should ", as that was very obviously the point of the concession in the first place - it wasn't that a large number of well off people could duck out of paying for using their toy. Nor, of course, was it to open the door to the system being a source of cheap housing, but that was the result of intentional increase in the cost of, and decrease in the availability of, rental property.

I'm a lot more sympathetic to the latter than I am the former.

[magnetman]

And meanwhile the furriners have snuck in and taken all the subsidised rental properties ! 

 

 

[Iain_S]

3 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Would cost more in bureaucracy than it would bring in, especially as just about all of it would end up being paid by the benefit system one way or another.

CC licences should only be granted to those who actually live on board for the duration of the licence. Anything else is daft.

(snip)

I'd have thought it would be perfectly possible to cruise around the canal system while having a permanent address on the bank, and not living on the boat. Cruise for a few days, moor up for a week or so and return to home address, return to the boat and carry on with the journey. Even just boating at week ends while on a progressive journey would comply with both the letter and spirit of the legislation, in my opinion.

[Arthur Marshall]

2 hours ago, magnetman said:

And meanwhile the furriners have snuck in and taken all the subsidised rental properties !

Post leaked from the political ghetto!

[matty40s]

15 minutes ago, Iain_S said:

I'd have thought it would be perfectly possible to cruise around the canal system while having a permanent address on the bank, and not living on the boat. Cruise for a few days, moor up for a week or so and return to home address, return to the boat and carry on with the journey. Even just boating at week ends while on a progressive journey would comply with both the letter and spirit of the legislation, in my opinion.

There are plenty of people who do this.

[Arthur Marshall]

15 minutes ago, Iain_S said:

I'd have thought it would be perfectly possible to cruise around the canal system while having a permanent address on the bank, and not living on the boat. Cruise for a few days, moor up for a week or so and return to home address, return to the boat and carry on with the journey. Even just boating at week ends while on a progressive journey would comply with both the letter and spirit of the legislation, in my opinion.

Exactly. Our opinions differ - such is the nature of opinion. Mine is that that cannot in any way be seen as a continuous cruise. Largely because it isn't continous, it's continually inerrupted.

1 minute ago, matty40s said:

There are plenty of people who do this.

Of course there are. It's why they are now being surcharged.

PS had enough of this now - been rehashed so often with entrenched views it's pointless. Badly drawn up laws get interpreted by each individual to their own advantage, quite rightly. 

I'm off to play the fiddle.

[haggis]

As well as the folk who "week end" their boat there are also the "continuos cruisers" who only move the minimum distance as seldom as possible in a fairly small area. To my mind the weekenders boat is at least "navigating the network".  You couldn't say that about the bridge hoppers 🙂 

 

[Iain_S]

27 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Exactly. Our opinions differ - such is the nature of opinion. Mine is that that cannot in any way be seen as a continuous cruise. Largely because it isn't continous, it's continually inerrupted.

(snip)

I'm off to play the fiddle.

Even someone living on their boat could to be said to be interrupting their cruise as soon as they moor for longer than overnight. Living, or not, on the boat is irrelevant.

 

 

[MtB]

51 minutes ago, Iain_S said:

I'd have thought it would be perfectly possible to cruise around the canal system while having a permanent address on the bank, and not living on the boat. Cruise for a few days, moor up for a week or so and return to home address, return to the boat and carry on with the journey. Even just boating at week ends while on a progressive journey would comply with both the letter and spirit of the legislation, in my opinion.

 

Surely this is exactly the circumstance for which the current law was written. 

 

People actually living aboard whilst cruising the network would have no need to moor the boat for periods of up to two weeks. 

 

 

[David Mack]

53 minutes ago, Iain_S said:

I'd have thought it would be perfectly possible to cruise around the canal system while having a permanent address on the bank, and not living on the boat. Cruise for a few days, moor up for a week or so and return to home address, return to the boat and carry on with the journey. Even just boating at week ends while on a progressive journey would comply with both the letter and spirit of the legislation, in my opinion.

And indeed this is the only way that boatowners who are tied to a Monday to Friday job are likely to be able to boat those parts of the network more than a day or two away from their home mooring.

38 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Mine is that that cannot in any way be seen as a continuous cruise. Largely because it isn't continous, it's continually inerrupted.

But again the 95 Act specifically provides for a continuous cruise to be interrupted by periods of up to 14 days (or such longer period... etc.)

[Arthur Marshall]

I'm going to drive from home in Brighton to Edinburgh. Mind you, I'm going to stop for a week in London, then go to Cardiff for a fortnight . Then I'm going to stay with friends in York for a week and drive up to Durham, where I'll take a few days visiting the cathedral. After that , I'll take the train back to Brighton for a week to see my son, then get one back to Durham, pick the car up and go to Edinburgh.

Now, if someone can explain how that's a single continuous drive, I might think some of the arguments above aren't total nonsense. And, oddly, saying "lots of peopls do it" is a statement, not an argument!

And now I really must put the fiddle in the car...

[nbfiresprite]

While heading down to Dorset for the rest of the weekend. Due to problems on the lines out of Waterloo, I rerouted myself via Paddington station and as the train I intended to use to Reading was leaving from platform 12 (Short ones). And it was about midday, I nipped over to Little Venice to do a quick headcount, so much for a turnout of hundreds. Wishful thinking for them as I only was able to see a small crowd of about 70 waving their silly signs. Heard quite a number of people yelling at them to 'Get a Job' or 'Have a shower' plus other things. Did not stay long as I had that train to catch.

[peterboat]

15 minutes ago, nbfiresprite said:

While heading down to Dorset for the rest of the weekend. Due to problems on the lines out of Waterloo, I rerouted myself via Paddington station and as the train I intended to use to Reading was leaving from platform 12 (Short ones). And it was about midday, I nipped over to Little Venice to do a quick headcount, so much for a turnout of hundreds. Wishful thinking for them as I only was able to see a small crowd of about 70 waving their silly signs. Heard quite a number of people yelling at them to 'Get a Job' or 'Have a shower' plus other things. Did not stay long as I had that train to catch.

Laughing at the subject matter, it seems that more are protesting against NBTA than for them

[TheBiscuits]

2 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Exactly. Our opinions differ - such is the nature of opinion. Mine is that that cannot in any way be seen as a continuous cruise.

 

Very true, but that was exactly my point upthread. 

 

There's no such thing as "continuous cruising" except in the imagination of then BW and now CRT staff and anyone taken in by it. 

 

I feel that makes it odd to complain that people aren't doing the completely made up thing that doesn't exist ...

[nbfiresprite]

28 minutes ago, peterboat said:

Laughing at the subject matter, it seems that more are protesting against NBTA than for them

It's no wonder that most see them as freeloaders when you consider that someone on the NMW working 35 hours a week is earning before deductions £20,820.80 and that the average renting household now spends 42% of their income on rent; this rises to 72% in London, 'Affordable rent' is deemed 30 percent or less. Yet the freeloaders moans about paying less than 10 percent of their income on the licence. 

Edited March 30 by nbfiresprite

[MtB]

3 minutes ago, nbfiresprite said:

It's no wonder that most see them as freeloaders when you consider that someone on the NMW working 35 hours a week is earning before deductions £20,820.80 and that the average household now spends 42% of their income on rent; this rises to 72% in London, 'Affordable rent' is deemed 30 percent or less. Yet the freeloaders moans about paying less than 10 percent of their income on the licence. 

 

AND they get a year of free moorings. 

 

 

[peterboat]

14 minutes ago, nbfiresprite said:

It's no wonder that most see them as freeloaders when you consider that someone on the NMW working 35 hours a week is earning before deductions £20,820.80 and that the average renting household now spends 42% of their income on rent; this rises to 72% in London, 'Affordable rent' is deemed 30 percent or less. Yet the freeloaders moans about paying less than 10 percent of their income on the licence. 

 

10 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

AND they get a year of free moorings. 

 

 

I follow a London boaters forum on Facebook, its interesting to say the least.