Not the usual rose tinted view…

[nealeST]

https://www.wiltshiretimes.co.uk/news/24385326.canal-boaters-wiltshire-fear-damage-done-stag-dos/?ref=suit

 

 

some interesting readers comments: 

Im sorry but if you choose to live on a floating corridor then tough luck buddy, my heart bleeds you don't have any friends (no doubt down to your hygiene habits) seriously get a grip and move to a house if it's so bad, Remember you chose this lifestyle! Also how much did this meaningless exercise cost the hard-pressed Council Taxpayer (something the floaters don't pay) investigate something that impacts on the Taxpayer not these lot!

 

Edited June 14 by nealeST
Added content

[Quattrodave]

I think thats a little harsh to say the least... Why do you react like that?

Haven't they got a right to clean water, reasonably priced groceries and not having they're property damaged by other people??

[magpie patrick]

I have just read the article - this is local to me, and the contents fall into three areas:

 

Some of the things affect people on low incomes full stop - the cost of living etc

Some of them are the effect of trying to live on a boat on a very low budget - it's hard

Some of them are not accepting that other people use the canal... (including the headline)

 

The Wilts Times often seems to have decided that liveaboard boaters are a cause celebre, I do sometimes wonder if this is simply to wind up the Bath Chronicle who tend to take the opposite view....

[nealeST]

38 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

I do sometimes wonder if this is simply to wind up the Bath Chronicle who tend to take the opposite view....

The article talks about the findings being presented to a Health Select committee. I’m curious about the delay with the story as all select committees were wound on the announcement of the general election…about 3 weeks ago? 
 

Half the adult population of the UK are reported as lonely…it seems boaters aren’t that far behind…

 

 

According to the Campaign to End Loneliness, in 2022, 50 per cent of adults (over 25 million people) in the UK reported feeling lonely occasionally, sometimes, often or always.Now the figure is up to 58 per cent.29 Feb 2024

 

 

Edited June 14 by nealeST
Added statistic

[Arthur Marshall]

Most of the comments are reasonable.

[David Mack]

Can't say I find the results particularly surprising, given the general demographic of those who liveaboard as notional CCers.

35 minutes ago, nealeST said:

The article talks about the findings being presented to a Health Select committee. I’m curious about the delay with the story as all select committees were wound on the announcement of the general election…about 3 weeks ago? 

Council Health Committee I assume given that it was a council-comissioned survey.

[zenataomm]

Sticking to provable facts and ignoring whitewash comments, some of which sound spiteful.
C&RT is not a Housing Society.
Buying a licence for your boat does not entitle you to live on your boat 365/24.
The original boat people, although their boats were registered for domicile had to live away from their boats for a week every year.

If you own a caravan, you can't just go and live in it without impunity.
Living on a boat without having an additional address is very close to being a vagrant, someone without a fixed abode.

If your issues are financial, health, child welfare etc. then Social Services and Welfare organisations are there to turn to (as hopeless as they may be) but not C&RT.

[David Mack]

30 minutes ago, zenataomm said:

The original boat people, although their boats were registered for domicile had to live away from their boats for a week every year.

Really? Do you have any evidence of that?

[Arthur Marshall]

6 hours ago, zenataomm said:

Sticking to provable facts and ignoring whitewash comments, some of which sound spiteful.
C&RT is not a Housing Society.
Buying a licence for your boat does not entitle you to live on your boat 365/24.
The original boat people, although their boats were registered for domicile had to live away from their boats for a week every year.

If you own a caravan, you can't just go and live in it without impunity.
Living on a boat without having an additional address is very close to being a vagrant, someone without a fixed abode.

If your issues are financial, health, child welfare etc. then Social Services and Welfare organisations are there to turn to (as hopeless as they may be) but not C&RT.

Why doesn't it, as long as you cruise under the rules, or have a residential mooring? The licence conditions say nothing about whether you live on or not, they just specify how the boat can be legally used.
Not having a fixed abode isn't an offence (nor is it vagrancy by any definition) or you've just instantly criminalised the entire Travveler community. Vagrancy, as a crime was supposed to be repealed two years ago, but anyway refers to homelessness, not whether your home is fixed or wanders about .

And nobody has suggested CRT should help with finances, health, welfare etc. The survey just pointed out boaters have the same problems as everyone else.

Edited June 15 by Arthur Marshall
Accuracy.

[magpie patrick]

6 hours ago, zenataomm said:

The original boat people, although their boats were registered for domicile had to live away from their boats for a week every year.

 

Assuming you mean working boat families they lived on board 365 days a year. That's the reason their boats were registered, to ensure the vessel met basic habitable standards. 

[Ronaldo47]

My understanding is that living on board with your entire family only became widespread in later years when competition from the railways depressed wages.

[MtB]

9 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Why doesn't it, as long as you cruise under the rules, or have a residential mooring? The licence conditions say nothing about whether you live on or not, they just specify how the boat can be legally used.

 

The General Canal Byelaws 1965 have something to say about it though:

 

30. No vessel on any canal shall without the permission of the Board

be used as a club, shop, store, workshop, dwelling or houseboat.

 

 

 

 

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

1 hour ago, MtB said:

30. No vessel on any canal shall without the permission of the Board

be used as a club, shop, store, workshop, dwelling or houseboat.

I think the clue is here:

“…without permission of the Board..”

which equally means they can grant permission,

I’ve been granted permission to have my boat as a shop, how about that, and whilst having it as a home too. 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[zenataomm]

15 hours ago, David Mack said:

Really? Do you have any evidence of that?

Only my grandparents' account, and they've not been around for 60 odd years to repeat it.  You'll notice I said "They had to ..." and not that they did.  Many rules and by-laws were/are contrived in order to match some bureaucrats' poorly thought out decision.  The vagrancy laws in the UK were introduced to give the police a reason to lock up soldiers etc that returned from war penniless and homeless (nothing changes).  A useful ruling which is probably why, although it was voted to repeal them in 2022, they still haven't.
Number One's didn't keep such petty records, so could easily quote dates they had spent time with relations away from the boats. Different companies in different areas interpreted it all differently.

10 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

 

Assuming you mean working boat families they lived on board 365 days a year. That's the reason their boats were registered, to ensure the vessel met basic habitable standards. 

I (and my grandparents) disagree.  Boat registration applied to the boats' suitability.  Vagrancy laws apply to people, and were/are used a hammer to get rid of undesirables not playing the game.  It also enabled bossy know it alls to step on your boat and harass you to behave. 

[Pluto]

This 1881 'advert' does state that boats were lived on full time, with boat families having no other accommodation. I do think his words are a little emotive, and that many boat families were not the dregs of society, as suggested. I have known all types, from those whose every second word needed buzzing out, to those who attended church regularly.

1881 Lords day observance.pdf

[magpie patrick]

On 15/06/2024 at 17:38, zenataomm said:

 

I (and my grandparents) disagree.  Boat registration applied to the boats' suitability.  Vagrancy laws apply to people, and were/are used a hammer to get rid of undesirables not playing the game.  It also enabled bossy know it alls to step on your boat and harass you to behave. 

 

I don't dispute what your grandparents said, but I would dispute that one can avoid being a vagrant by not living on one's boat one week a year, or that one would become a vagrant if one lived on board 365 weeks a year - the wording of the vagrancy act is far more nuanced than that.

 

Reading the act, one would only have to trade without a licence (pedlar), beg or be a prostitute for long enough for the authorities to notice to be charged, and it wasn't aimed at no fixed abode, it was aimed at rough sleeping among other things. 

[Alan de Enfield]

2 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

365 weeks a year

 

Long years in your part of the world !

[Tam & Di]

On 15/06/2024 at 01:33, zenataomm said:

The original boat people, although their boats were registered for domicile had to live away from their boats for a week every year.

I know that to be the case in respect of caravan sites, but never in respect of working boats, and I don't know where your grandparents got that idea from. It's not a thing I've ever heard of from any of the boat people we knew or worked with - they had no other place to live anyway.

We lived on boats from the late 50s and had two children. We paid whatever were the relevant rates/Council taxes, the boys went to school, had Doctors etc, and never was there any suggestion we should 'live' somewhere else for a week or any other period. Nothing changed when we took up freight boating about 1970.

Edited June 17 by Tam & Di
amplification

[Alan de Enfield]

25 minutes ago, Tam & Di said:

I know that to be the case in respect of caravan sites,

 

Caravan sites with Planning Permission for 'residential' can remain open 12 months of the year.

Ones with 'leisure' Planning Permission will generally have to close for (depending on the LA requirements) 1 month - our site has to close, & have the water and electricity switched off from 4th Jan to 4th Feb. You (we) are allowed to choose which month we wished to be closed.

[Gybe Ho]

We have to consider motivation of the authorities. Enforcement of the non residential clause would dump a major influx of homeless refugees onto Social Services across the country.

[DandV]

My understanding is that Council's have some welfare obligations to all those residing in their area.

And a lot of their residents will be on struggle street, or in this case, struggle ditch, in varying degrees of deprivation and need.

The boat dwellers are an identifiable community. 

So it is quite appropriate for the council to conduct a survey in an attempt to quantify the extent and depth of needs from this identifiable group.  

Just like it does with other identifiable vulnerable groups, rough sleepers,  elderly,  disabled, and even  children, 

But what will come of it? Austerity particularly affects the vulnerable.

 

Councils already are suffering from declining, and already inadequate funding for  core service provision, including local welfare provision. 

 

And CART has neither the expertise, or funding to be a defacto welfare organisation. It already has massive and wide ranging  responsibilities. Underfunding  means even their core functions of maintaining a massive heritage linear park, and complex waterway systems , are  being degraded. 

So certainly I do not think that CART should relax it's movement requirements. To do so would just create another privileged group of those granted mooring squatting rights and entrench yet  another inequality.

 

[Naartjie AKA Duck Hatch]

On 15/06/2024 at 00:33, zenataomm said:

Sticking to provable facts and ignoring whitewash comments, some of which sound spiteful.
C&RT is not a Housing Society.
Buying a licence for your boat does not entitle you to live on your boat 365/24.
The original boat people, although their boats were registered for domicile had to live away from their boats for a week every year.

If you own a caravan, you can't just go and live in it without impunity.
Living on a boat without having an additional address is very close to being a vagrant, someone without a fixed abode.

If your issues are financial, health, child welfare etc. then Social Services and Welfare organisations are there to turn to (as hopeless as they may be) but not C&RT.

Here we go again 

Bashing the CCers 🥱

[Gybe Ho]

Reading the range of opinions here leads me to the conclusion that the status quo is about right.

 

The authorities probably accept that an inland boat is the primary residence for 10k to 30k people who do not technically have residency rights. Local authorities likely view high density immobile boat communities as an unfunded social care liability. The CRT probably exercise light touch techniques to move continuous cruisers on where there is friction between boaters and the local council.

[David Schweizer]

On 14/06/2024 at 21:09, magpie patrick said:

I have just read the article - this is local to me, and the contents fall into three areas:

 

Some of the things affect people on low incomes full stop - the cost of living etc

Some of them are the effect of trying to live on a boat on a very low budget - it's hard

Some of them are not accepting that other people use the canal... (including the headline)

 

The Wilts Times often seems to have decided that liveaboard boaters are a cause celebre, I do sometimes wonder if this is simply to wind up the Bath Chronicle who tend to take the opposite view....

 

Probably more to do with who writes their articles. The Wiltshire Times tends to rely upon freelancers, plus random members of the public and individual organizations, some of whom sometimes manage to get biased or poory researched articles printed. AFAIK, the Bath Chronicle still has in house reporters .

 

 

Edited July 19 by David Schweizer