Novara Media Report on C&RT.

[IanD]

3 hours ago, Peanut said:

Arthur, you are so hartless. 😉

Lacking in female deer, traditionally white? 😉

[DandV]

The relationship between boaters and CART is fundamentally a commercial one.

CART administers and maintains a huge portfolio of property, on behalf of the Crown. Even if a very significant part of that property is covered in water it is still nevertheless still property with value, as infilled canals demonstrate.  

The maintenance, and provision of services has to be paid for. As a group, boaters recieve the greatest benifit from the maintenance, and provision of services on this property portfolio. Therefore it is entirely proper that they fully fund purely boating services, and the purely boating infrastructure.

 

And as anywhere in a property portfolio the value of any given area is highly dependant on location. Value to any occupants, as well as unrealised potential  value to any alternate users . So London moorings have a significant value premium, that perhaps is not currently being fully collected. 

CART has a responsibility to all taxpayers to minimise it's overall costs to those taxpayers by extracting fees from identifiable users on a  fair commercial basis. It is now primarily now a provider of linear parks that provide for for recreational boating, as well as walking and cycling and recreational fishing. It is no more a housing authority then your national highways administrators. 

 

[magnetman]

The theory is that there are thousands of people living on vessels that the CRT 'know about and allow" 

 

However one could point out that there is no function available in the licence system where an owner of a boat is able to indicate that they live aboard the vessel. The only thing I can think of is the BS scheme when the examiner asks if the boat is a primary residence but I don't know if this is recorded anywhere. 

 

It seems to be entirely plausible  the only people that CRT actually know are living aboard are those who have residential moorings .

It is easy for somebody who lives on a boat to assume that the CRT know about it but unless they have been told how would they know as an organisation? 

 

If a tick box appeared in the licence application similar to the 'no home mooring' declaration which attracted an increased licence fee it would be interesting to see how many people tick the yes box.

 

 

Point being that if it is a primary residence then the DwP can pay the licence fee  under the  housing element of universal credit.

Edited December 14, 2025 by magnetman

[Arthur Marshall]

11 hours ago, IanD said:

Lacking in female deer, traditionally white? 😉

Accurate, then!

[eeyore49]

The Licence Fee was legally defined as "rent" and a boater without a home mooring was therefore entitled to Housing Benfit by the Social Security Commissioner's Judgement  CH 0318 2005-00. CRT therefore receive "rent" and by these dictionary definitions is a "landlord".

Edited December 14, 2025 by eeyore49
inaccuracy

[magnetman]

18 minutes ago, eeyore49 said:

The Licence Fee was legally defined as "rent" and a boater without a home mooring was therefore entitled to Housing Benfit by the Social Security Commissioner's Judgement  CH 0318 2005-00. CRT therefore receive "rent" and by these dictionary definitions is a "landlord".

Yes. I think that was the geyser who had the old wooden lifeboat near Camden for ages. Ended up sunk later on Ducketts cut.

 

Anyway yes in that case it was rent but it is still slightly interesting to think about how the CRT, as a statue bound organisation, would actually know if someone was living aboard. 

 

Obviously there will be local general knowledge but unless they are specifically told they don't know. How could they given how many examples there must be of people having a Boat as cheap London accommodation while actually living somewhere else in a house. 

 

People who are doing that are gaining a private advantage from a charity because there are no other housing options as cheap as that. Even a room in a shared house would be far more than a CRT licence.

 

 

[CV32]

It seems to be an interesting article written by one of Corbyn or possibly Zack Polanski's mates. CRT are an evil organisation making people stick to the rules of navigation (when they can be bothered or have the funding to enforce). How awful.

[Tonka]

4 hours ago, CV32 said:

It seems to be an interesting article written by one of Corbyn or possibly Zack Polanski's mates. CRT are an evil organisation making people stick to the rules of navigation (when they can be bothered or have the funding to enforce). How awful.

If you don't like the rules, don't take part in the game.

[Arthur Marshall]

1 minute ago, Tonka said:

If you don't like the rules, don't take part in the game.

I think that's rather their point. They don't like the rules and don't intend to play the game as defined, but they aren't going to get off the pitch, so to speak. I think that's how rugby got invented, so it's a perfectly valid approach, especially if you think that there could be better rules than the ones being imposed on you.

If it wasn't for people deliberately breaking rules, we'd still be hanging people for stealing sheep and married women wouldn't be allowed to own property. Mind you, there are those on here who might prefer the old ways...

What might help devalue the NBTA type arguments would be if any of the Chairmen of CRT knew anything about canals or rivers.  After Orr, who was exBW, we've had one whose expertise was in housing, one who knew a lot about trains, and now another housing specialist doing turnabout on the charity bandwagon The NBTA can quite genuinely argue that they know a lot more about the waterways and its problems than anyone running CRT.

[beerbeerbeerbeerbeer]

24 minutes ago, Tonka said:

If you don't like the rules, don't take part in the game.

do you shout at hotels too when you’re not boating?

[Tonka]

2 minutes ago, beerbeerbeerbeerbeer said:

do you shout at hotels too when you’re not boating?

Me no understand. Sorry Glenn 

[Ronaldo47]

The definition of "rent" made in the Social Security  Commissioner's judgement, which would have been made on the facts of the particular case, would not necessarily be binding in  other circumstances where the facts are different.

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

24 minutes ago, Tonka said:

Me no understand. Sorry Glenn 

With you on that one

[waterworks]

Novara media is a far left lonny channel that employs the racist communist Ash Sarkar. They don't even know what a canal is. 

[CV32]

4 hours ago, Tonka said:

If you don't like the rules, don't take part in the game.

I should have included a laughy face or wonky face as it was meant as sarcasm 😂

[Arthur Marshall]

1 hour ago, waterworks said:

Novara media is a far left lonny channel that employs the racist communist Ash Sarkar. They don't even know what a canal is. 

I can't find any stuff supporting her being racist. As that's a fairly serious (and possibly actionable) description, could you point me to your evidential quotes? I'm sure you wouldn't make it up just because you don't like her politics.

I'm not even sure she's a communist, though tbh I'm not sure what one of those is, really, these days. It's a bit of a dog's breakfast, the far left. It's a legitimate political position, anyway, whichever bit of it you think she belongs to, if she does.

[Richard Fairhurst]

I suspect Novara Media knows about as much about waterways as Waterways World does about Trotskyism.

[frahkn]

If Waterways World feels the need to appoint a Trotskyism correspondent (it would have to be part-time and adequately rewarded)

I'm available.

Otherwise probably Novara will snap me up as their waterways expert.

[Arthur Marshall]

16 hours ago, Richard Fairhurst said:

I suspect Novara Media knows about as much about waterways as Waterways World does about Trotskyism.

Yes, but the point of investigative journalism is rather to find out stuff that they don't know about. The ST blokes who uncovered the thalidomide scandal were neither chemists nor doctors, nor were those who dug out the paedophile rings interested in having sex with children.

Novara Media obviously know more about the waterways than they did, even if they're only interested in one side of the story, as is the case of most politiclly biased journalsm, whether in NM or the Daily Telegraph. If you want something slightly more unbiased, you have to go to something either publicly owned and separate from Government or something owned by a trust rather than an individual. You can tell it's less warped because it gets attacked by both political wings.

[IanD]

1 minute ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Yes, but the point of investigative journalism is rather to find out stuff that they don't know about. The ST blokes who uncovered the thalidomide scandal were neither chemists nor doctors, nor were those who dug out the paedophile rings interested in having sex with children.

Novara Media obviously know more about the waterways than they did, even if they're only interested in one side of the story, as is the case of most politiclly biased journalsm, whether in NM or the Daily Telegraph. If you want something slightly more unbiased, you have to go to something either publicly owned and separate from Government or something owned by a trust rather than an individual. You can tell it's less warped because it gets attacked by both political wings.

Like the Grauniad? 😉 

[waterworks]

On 14/12/2025 at 20:38, Arthur Marshall said:

I can't find any stuff supporting her being racist. As that's a fairly serious (and possibly actionable) description, could you point me to your evidential quotes? I'm sure you wouldn't make it up just because you don't like her politics.

I'm not even sure she's a communist, though tbh I'm not sure what one of those is, really, these days. It's a bit of a dog's breakfast, the far left. It's a legitimate political position, anyway, whichever bit of it you think she belongs to, if she does.

Sue me. 

[Arthur Marshall]

44 minutes ago, waterworks said:

Sue me. 

I assume that means you just made it up. Fair enough, as long as we know you're lying about someone you know nothing about except you disagree with their politics. Par for the course, these days, I suppose.

 

[Momac]

On 14/12/2025 at 10:30, magnetman said:

 

 

People who are doing that are gaining a private advantage from a charity because there are no other housing options as cheap as that. 

Surely people have lived aboard boats on the canals from the early days of the canals. The change of the canal management to a company that happens to be a charity only occurred relatively recently (C&RT was created in 2012)  I think this may be  significant as the act of living on a boat on the canals has never been challenged for so long it may establish a right to live aboard . 

If C&RT wanted to assert a right to prohibit long term living aboard  boats it should have done so when it was created .

 

 

 

 

[Ronaldo47]

My understanding is that living onboard with your family,  only became widespread when competition from the railways depressed wages. In the early days, pay was high enough for men to afford a house on land. 

[Momac]

1 hour ago, Ronaldo47 said:

My understanding is that living onboard with your family,  only became widespread when competition from the railways depressed wages. In the early days, pay was high enough for men to afford a house on land. 

That's still going back 150 years or more