Boat licensing commission give up-date.

[Alan de Enfield]

Boat licensing Commission gives update

In January, the Commission which is looking into boat licensing on our canals and rivers, met for the first time. Since then, many of you have shared your views through an engagement survey – thank you to everyone who took part. The 4,678 responses, which include a wide range of comments, is informing the Commission’s ongoing work.

The Commission members – Andrew Cowan, a former senior partner at Devonshire's law firm; Penelope Barber, an elected boating representative on our Council; and trustee Sir Chris Kelly, a former senior civil servant and former boat owner – are now having conversations with a wide range of boating organisations, as well as walking the towpaths to gain an understanding of life on the cut and hear boaters’ thoughts.

On top of that, they are reviewing a wide range of background, history, and data, and have attended several briefing days where they’ve questioned and challenged the Trust’s ways of thinking and asked for more information so they can continue their research.

Given the scale and seriousness of the task, the Commission now expects to make their recommendations to our Board of Trustees in November.

Commission chair Andrew Cowan said: “Learning about boating on the canals and hearing the voices of boaters has been fascinating. From the freight-carrying origins, through the near loss of navigation last century, to the popularity of both leisure boating and, increasingly living aboard, the canals and boats are inseparable. We want to understand the needs of not just today’s boaters but those who come after, so we can think about whether the current licensing framework is fit for the future and recommend how it can be used to best support boaters while enabling the Trust to meet its charitable obligations to safeguard the canals for the public benefit, for wildlife, and for heritage. I’ve particularly enjoyed seeing canal life first hand and would like to thank all those boaters, and people within the Trust, who have been so welcoming, and continue to share their knowledge with us.”

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

 

[Arthur Marshall]

18 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Commission chair Andrew Cowan said: “Learning about boating on the canals and hearing the voices of boaters has been fascinating.

Might have been an idea to have a chair who already knew something about boating and boaters...

[Lady M]

But someone who didn't know anything at all is surely less likely to already have a bias.  The other two members do have boating experience, including living aboard.

[Gybe Ho]

19 minutes ago, Lady M said:

But someone who didn't know anything at all is surely less likely to already have a bias.  The other two members do have boating experience, including living aboard.

 

Indeed, imagine the Commissions' recommendations if the Great & Good of this forum were running the Commission. From what I have read here in the past 6 months the findings would be:

 

1. All CRT bins will be removed to discourage liveaboards and because the CRT is clearly too incompetent to implement new recycling legislation.
2. Operation of the canal network should be handed over to local bodies who could then realize the full potential of the canals by filling them in for building land.
3. Cruiser Stern boats should pay a 10% licence premium for the aesthetic distress they cause to trad stern boat owners.
4. The minimum speed on the network will be 3.9 mph and 4.5 mph when passing CMers.
5. The CRT CC annual license should be set to meet the principal that all renters in the UK must pay £12,000 per year for their accommodation with a small reduction to reflect the square footage of a narrow boat is smaller than a 1 bed flat.
6. The maximum mooring duration should be 48 hours everywhere on the network to encourage proper high velocity cruising.
7. CMer boats should be promptly crushed, preferably with their occupants entombed inside.
8. Reform voters are clearly mentally deranged and should not be allowed on the network.
9. London wood burning regulations should be applied to the whole network to make life more difficult for liveaboards.
10. CCers should be banned from London because they are all freeloading skanky people who believe in laylines, crystals, paint rainbows on their boats and do not have proper painted tincan flower pots on their roofs.
11. The National Bargee Travellers Association should be categorized as a proscribed terrorist organization because men or women who wear dungarees terrify Boomers.
12. The wife of the CEO of the CRT should be kidnapped and held to ransom to ensure the CRT implement the above.

 

[nicknorman]

6 minutes ago, Gybe Ho said:

 

Indeed, imagine the Commissions' recommendations if the Great & Good of this forum were running the Commission. From what I have read here in the past 6 months the findings would be:

 

1. All CRT bins will be removed to discourage liveaboards and because the CRT is clearly too incompetent to implement new recycling legislation.
2. Operation of the canal network should be handed over to local bodies who could then realize the full potential of the canals by filling them in for building land.
3. Cruiser Stern boats should pay a 10% licence premium for the aesthetic distress they cause to trad stern boat owners.
4. The minimum speed on the network will be 3.9 mph and 4.5 mph when passing CMers.
5. The CRT CC annual license should be set to meet the principal that all renters in the UK must pay £12,000 per year for their accommodation with a small reduction to reflect the square footage of a narrow boat is smaller than a 1 bed flat.
6. The maximum mooring duration should be 48 hours everywhere on the network to encourage proper high velocity cruising.
7. CMer boats should be promptly crushed, preferably with their occupants entombed inside.
8. Reform voters are clearly mentally deranged and should not be allowed on the network.
9. London wood burning regulations should be applied to the whole network to make life more difficult for liveaboards.
10. CCers should be banned from London because they are all freeloading skanky people who believe in laylines, crystals, paint rainbows on their boats and do not have proper painted tincan flower pots on their roofs.
11. The National Bargee Travellers Association should be categorized as a proscribed terrorist organization because men or women who wear dungarees terrify Boomers.
12. The wife of the CEO of the CRT should be kidnapped and held to ransom to ensure the CRT implement the above.

Excellent. Just send that off to the commission and tell them their work is done and they can have the rest of the week off.

[magnetman]

1 hour ago, Gybe Ho said:

 

Indeed, imagine the Commissions' recommendations if the Great & Good of this forum were running the Commission. From what I have read here in the past 6 months the findings would be:

 

1. All CRT bins will be removed to discourage liveaboards and because the CRT is clearly too incompetent to implement new recycling legislation.
2. Operation of the canal network should be handed over to local bodies who could then realize the full potential of the canals by filling them in for building land.
3. Cruiser Stern boats should pay a 10% licence premium for the aesthetic distress they cause to trad stern boat owners.
4. The minimum speed on the network will be 3.9 mph and 4.5 mph when passing CMers.
5. The CRT CC annual license should be set to meet the principal that all renters in the UK must pay £12,000 per year for their accommodation with a small reduction to reflect the square footage of a narrow boat is smaller than a 1 bed flat.
6. The maximum mooring duration should be 48 hours everywhere on the network to encourage proper high velocity cruising.
7. CMer boats should be promptly crushed, preferably with their occupants entombed inside.
8. Reform voters are clearly mentally deranged and should not be allowed on the network.
9. London wood burning regulations should be applied to the whole network to make life more difficult for liveaboards.
10. CCers should be banned from London because they are all freeloading skanky people who believe in laylines, crystals, paint rainbows on their boats and do not have proper painted tincan flower pots on their roofs.
11. The National Bargee Travellers Association should be categorized as a proscribed terrorist organization because men or women who wear dungarees terrify Boomers.
12. The wife of the CEO of the CRT should be kidnapped and held to ransom to ensure the CRT implement the above.

 

3.1

 

Pram hoods shall be banned then burned on pyres. 

 

 

[Arthur Marshall]

1 hour ago, Gybe Ho said:

 

Indeed, imagine the Commissions' recommendations if the Great & Good of this forum were running the Commission. From what I have read here in the past 6 months the findings would be:

 

1. All CRT bins will be removed to discourage liveaboards and because the CRT is clearly too incompetent to implement new recycling legislation.
2. Operation of the canal network should be handed over to local bodies who could then realize the full potential of the canals by filling them in for building land.
3. Cruiser Stern boats should pay a 10% licence premium for the aesthetic distress they cause to trad stern boat owners.
4. The minimum speed on the network will be 3.9 mph and 4.5 mph when passing CMers.
5. The CRT CC annual license should be set to meet the principal that all renters in the UK must pay £12,000 per year for their accommodation with a small reduction to reflect the square footage of a narrow boat is smaller than a 1 bed flat.
6. The maximum mooring duration should be 48 hours everywhere on the network to encourage proper high velocity cruising.
7. CMer boats should be promptly crushed, preferably with their occupants entombed inside.
8. Reform voters are clearly mentally deranged and should not be allowed on the network.
9. London wood burning regulations should be applied to the whole network to make life more difficult for liveaboards.
10. CCers should be banned from London because they are all freeloading skanky people who believe in laylines, crystals, paint rainbows on their boats and do not have proper painted tincan flower pots on their roofs.
11. The National Bargee Travellers Association should be categorized as a proscribed terrorist organization because men or women who wear dungarees terrify Boomers.
12. The wife of the CEO of the CRT should be kidnapped and held to ransom to ensure the CRT implement the above.

 

You forgot:

13. The Boat Safety Certificate should be an annual test and incorporate an out of water hull survey at an officially designated yard. There will be at least one such yard per region.

[magnetman]

Said yard to be owned and operated by the navigation authority. 

 

This could also allow S8 to operate correctly ie vessels to be removed and stored locally rather than trucking them for hundreds of miles to a remote farm owned by a 3rd party contractor. 

 

 

 

[DaveP]

15.  'No vessel shall be placed on the Charity's property without - i) written permission in the form as laid out in the Byelaws, ii) an undertaking by both the owner and master, in such form as prescribed in the Terms and Conditions, iii) a bond, secured by full payment in advance, to cover costs and damages that the vessel may potentially cause whilst on the Charity's property, and iv) an annual inspection, at a location of the Charity's choice, at the owner's expense, of the vessel, to fulfil the requirements set out in the documents available to view in the basement of the Newcastle-on-Tyne office, behind the door marked 'beware of the leopard'.

[MtB]

2 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

You forgot:

13. The Boat Safety Certificate should be an annual test and incorporate an out of water hull survey at an officially designated yard. There will be at least one such yard per region.

 

Surely a new BSS should be done every time the boat is used. After all, who knows what might have gone wrong with iot since you last locked the door and walked away from it? 

 

(Just channeling some of the more safety-paranoid posters in here!) 

 

 

[system 4-50]

16.  No additional regulations shall be devised, promulgated, and implemented, that admit of only one interpretation or meaning.

17.   No additional regulations shall be devised, promulgated, and implemented, that have more than a cat in hell's chance of being enforced.

[magnetman]

2 hours ago, DaveP said:

15.  'No vessel shall be placed on the Charity's property without - i) written permission in the form as laid out in the Byelaws, ii) an undertaking by both the owner and master, in such form as prescribed in the Terms and Conditions, iii) a bond, secured by full payment in advance, to cover costs and damages that the vessel may potentially cause whilst on the Charity's property, and iv) an annual inspection, at a location of the Charity's choice, at the owner's expense, of the vessel, to fulfil the requirements set out in the documents available to view in the basement of the Newcastle-on-Tyne office, behind the door marked 'beware of the leopard'

 

Payment of an advance bond is a very interesting idea. I promoted this in the old thread about the Commission. 

 

It does make a lot of sense. Someone may object that they can not afford it but that could equally indicate that they can not afford to keep a Boat in the first place. 

 

Given that people do regularly dump scrap vessels on CRT property it seems to be a sensible approach. 

 

Also more controls on entry onto the water in the first place. Boatyards should not be profiting from lifting vessels in which are not licensed. 

[DShK]

On 21/06/2025 at 10:08, Arthur Marshall said:

You forgot:

13. The Boat Safety Certificate should be an annual test and incorporate an out of water hull survey at an officially designated yard. There will be at least one such yard per region.

The BSS shall now make sure there is full compliance with the RCD.

 

CRT will personally criminally charge you for buying, selling or owning a boat that is not RCD compliant. Reintroduction of the death penalty for those found guilty.

[magnetman]

Also fines for people who place objects upon the towpath. 

 

There will be chair police. Persons found engaging in mildly enjoyable social engagements on CRT land will be forced to do Suttons stop turn twenty times in a day with one hand tied behind their back while being watched by half cut gongoozlers. 

 

 

[DaveP]

In order to enhance the enjoyment and utility of the towpath for users, all boats moored along the nearside must be equipped with the following;

- rubbish bin for users to deposit waste.  To include the mandatory sorting into the six waste streams before disposing of the full bags in a CRT facility. For the avoidance of doubt, dog poo must be accepted.

- touristic guide dispenser, may be supplemented by personal interaction, and a bonus for each 'friend' recruited and retained for over 12 months will be paid as a discount on the boat licence.

Edited June 22, 2025 by DaveP

[Arthur Marshall]

46 minutes ago, DaveP said:

and a bonus for each 'friend' recruited and retained for over 12 months will be paid as a discount on the boat licence

As the "friends" scheme appears to have cost more than it has contributed, a boaters licence will be increased by 5% for each person recruited...