CRT nonchalence

[Starrynight]

I just feel a bit miffed. I pay  £2400 for a CRT mooring every year for some years now. It has no facilities whatsoever. But that's not the point, I like the location. My gripe is that other boats have discovered that the CRT do nothing whatsoever, if they stay right next to me for free. Some of them have left their boat at the location for over 3 years and never turn up. Others stay on board. I have seen some do things that are not good for the canal or environment. Some say they can't afford to pay, but it seems they can afford other things like plenty of alcohol. Others milk the system, with excuses such has the boat does not have an engine. CRT doesn't seem to check anything, their people go past check the boats all the time, but no one does anything. 

It just seems unfair that some people pay and others pay nothing. I try and ignore it on the whole, thinking maybe they do have finance problems. 

Has anyone experienced this? 

Edited January 5 by Starrynight
None

[matty40s]

It does appear down here that enforcement went out of the window when the drought closures started and boats just arent bothering with the 14 day stay any more. There are boats locally that have not moved in 2 months, some much longer.

One moored for 8 weeks across from the brokerage and even had the cheek to ring them up and ask if the boat was ok as he was away working....another moorer has been there 7 weeks now and goes to work every morning...running his noisy genny every evening.

Now, we have a frozen canal...so that's another week...at least ...and people asking if here is a rule that its unsafe to move if a robin farts.

I dont know what or if there is an answer, but whatever used to work doesnt work any more.

 

[Arthur Marshall]

It's one of those things that, if you let it, can sour your view of a lot of things. But you have to remember that, because you're legal, nobody is going to come and tow your boat away or take you to court, and that you have somewhere to come back to when you go away.

Some of the absentees may in fact be paying - there's no real way you can tell now CRT don't insist on the licence  showing and have scrapped mooring permits. There's no harm on people living on their boats, if anything, it's good for security.

There is nothing in the rules of life to suggest that life should be fair. Ripoff merchants usually get rheir comeuppance in the end, but even if they get away with it for ever, it is a lot less nerve-wracking being legal. I find that it's important to save your rulebreaking for when it matters, and stick to the law and the rules as far as you can without breaking your personal convictions.

 

Edited January 6 by Arthur Marshall

[MtB]

7 hours ago, matty40s said:

I dont know what or if there is an answer, but whatever used to work doesnt work any more.

 

 

Of course there is an answer. Make every boat pay £6k a year *licence fee and say moor wherever you like, for as long as you like, for no extra charge. 

 

* Plus a £3k discount if you can produce a marina mooring contract. 

 

 

[Victor Vectis]

Not quite in the same vein but someone is a tad pissedorf at Lapworth.

[MtB]

7 hours ago, Starrynight said:

I just feel a bit miffed. I pay  £2400 for a CRT mooring every year for some years now. It has no facilities whatsoever.

 

 

That's one helluva bargain. CRT on-line moorings here are £5k+ a year, also with no facilities whatsoever.

 

 

[Unicorn Stampede]

36 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

 

That's one helluva bargain. CRT on-line moorings here are £5k+ a year, also with no facilities whatsoever.

 

 

Sounds like the North/South divide in action.

 

Unfortunately a good number of boaters have learnt that CRT has more bark than bite. They've sped up their ability to begin removal and enforcement of non licence holders etc but they haven't sped up their actioning of said threats.

 

Heck, there's a number of boats on the Rochdale canal that haven't moved in a year-plus. They've openly admitted they are able to string the CRT along, and there's no apparent threat of them being removed. This is what happens when people won't 'do right' by what they've agreed and the system can't enforce real action. In some ways I'll be happy when those sorts are off the canals...

 

[Gybe Ho]

16 hours ago, Starrynight said:

 

Has anyone experienced this? 

 

 

The CRT Commission noted there are 4000 unlicensed boats on the system and presumably unlicensed boats are the tip of the mooring-overstay iceberg.

 

As society starts to unravel more people will be able to deceive themselves into portraying their CRT license evasion or mooring overstay rule breaking as a noble philosophy and protest against the elite. Look at the plummeting BBC TV license income for further evidence of this social trend.

[JoeC]

17 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

... CRT don't insist on the licence  showing ...

 

You are supposed to display your licence.

 

'Although we can tell from the boat index number whether a boat is licenced, it's still a legal requirement to display them along with your boat name and index number.'.

FAQs on boat licensing, buying and selling | Canal & River Trust

 

Also ...

GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR BOAT LICENCES (EXCLUDING BUSINESS LICENCES)

7.1   You must display the Boat’s name, index number and the Licence on both sides of the Boat so that they are always easily visible by our employees on the towpath or on the Waterway. If you do not, we may place a sticker on the Boat or on any cover on the Boat showing the number, which must not be removed unless the number is displayed in some other way. Any Tender must be marked with ‘Tender to (name and index number of the Boat)’.

[Stroudwater1]

21 minutes ago, JoeC said:

You are supposed to display your licence.

 

'Although we can tell from the boat index number whether a boat is licenced, it's still a legal requirement to display them along with your boat name and index number.'.

FAQs on boat licensing, buying and selling | Canal & River Trust

 

Also ...

GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR BOAT LICENCES (EXCLUDING BUSINESS LICENCES)

7.1   You must display the Boat’s name, index number and the Licence on both sides of the Boat so that they are always easily visible by our employees on the towpath or on the Waterway. If you do not, we may place a sticker on the Boat or on any cover on the Boat showing the number, which must not be removed unless the number is displayed in some other way. Any Tender must be marked with ‘Tender to (name and index number of the Boat)’.

Arthur and you don’t contradict? You are supposed to but like overstaying CRT don’t appear to insist. We have only once been asked to show where our licence is in the last few years. Not sure we would have got through the lock  without it.
 

However if the boat is overstaying then that’s another reason to overstay for longer. Can’t go through the lock as Printer is bust/ no ink/ licence is in the post… 

 

Interestingly I don’t think the licence size to display is specified? 

[Alan de Enfield]

2 minutes ago, Stroudwater1 said:

Arthur and you don’t contradict? You are supposed to but like overstaying CRT don’t appear to insist. We have only once been asked to show where our licence is in the last few years. Not sure we would have got through the lock  without it.
 

However if the boat is overstaying then that’s another reason to overstay for longer. Can’t go through the lock as Printer is bust/ no ink/ licence is in the post… 

 

Interestingly I don’t think the licence size to display is specified? 

 

 

If you are unable to print out on the boat C&RT will post your licence 'disc' to your normal contact address.

[IanD]

3 minutes ago, Stroudwater1 said:

Arthur and you don’t contradict? You are supposed to but like overstaying CRT don’t appear to insist. We have only once been asked to show where our licence is in the last few years. Not sure we would have got through the lock  without it.
 

However if the boat is overstaying then that’s another reason to overstay for longer. Can’t go through the lock as Printer is bust/ no ink/ licence is in the post… 

 

Interestingly I don’t think the licence size to display is specified? 

You could print out the license at the size of a postage stamp, but this wouldn't meet the CART requirement that "...they are always easily visible by our employees on the towpath or on the Waterway." 😉 

[ditchcrawler]

2 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:

 

The CRT Commission noted there are 4000 unlicensed boats on the system and presumably unlicensed boats are the tip of the mooring-overstay iceberg.

 

I would think they would be more likely to move to make enforcement harder.

[Arthur Marshall]

1 hour ago, JoeC said:

You are supposed to display your licence.

 

'Although we can tell from the boat index number whether a boat is licenced, it's still a legal requirement to display them along with your boat name and index number.'.

FAQs on boat licensing, buying and selling | Canal & River Trust

 

Also ...

GENERAL TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR BOAT LICENCES (EXCLUDING BUSINESS LICENCES)

7.1   You must display the Boat’s name, index number and the Licence on both sides of the Boat so that they are always easily visible by our employees on the towpath or on the Waterway. If you do not, we may place a sticker on the Boat or on any cover on the Boat showing the number, which must not be removed unless the number is displayed in some other way. Any Tender must be marked with ‘Tender to (name and index number of the Boat)’.

Of course you are, which is why,  being a good chap, I do. But CRT have said over and over again that they don't care whether it's displayed or not and their spotters just record the boat number. Which of course is fine if there is one,  which if you want to avoid detection there isn't. 

Which is why it's barmy that CRT don't insist on the licence being shown, and also daft that they scrapped the display of a mooring permit, especially now there's a premium for CCs.

That's the difference between what looks like a really good idea in an office, and what reality is like.

[Gybe Ho]

31 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

I would think they would be more likely to move to make enforcement harder.

 

Not so for the examples I have clocked in the past 6 months. Such owners must have a 6th sense as to how many elapsed months and enforcement notices can be attached to their boat before it is time to relocate across the county border.

[Gybe Ho]

16 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

 

That's the difference between what looks like a really good idea in an office, and what reality is like.

 

 

Stuck-on QR-codes and drones are the answer. I imagine that within a few years the CRT will own a fleet of surveillance drones that will fly along the network daily scanning for QR-codes. After a 2 day overstay the CRT Situation Room will authorize dispatch of a predator drone that will fire a paint-ball at your cabin top. 7 days later an overstayer will experience another visit from the CRT Predator drone but this time the paint-ball will be a self mixing 2-pot epoxy variant in day-glo orange.

 

The ultimate deterrent will be the CRT reaper drone swarm.

[Unicorn Stampede]

2 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Of course you are, which is why,  being a good chap, I do. But CRT have said over and over again that they don't care whether it's displayed or not and their spotters just record the boat number. Which of course is fine if there is one,  which if you want to avoid detection there isn't. 

Which is why it's barmy that CRT don't insist on the licence being shown, and also daft that they scrapped the display of a mooring permit, especially now there's a premium for CCs.

That's the difference between what looks like a really good idea in an office, and what reality is like.

We don't display our licences. Truthfully I don't think it makes any difference. No one on the towpath is going to challenge you (especially not after the murder which happened previously to a spotter). 

 

Much in the way tax discs in cars have been replaced, the idea of a paper licence is also out of date. Truthfully the specifics of that detail for CRT just need to be updated. 

 

I'm not sure there's an robust argument for, overstayers = licence display. For a lack of licence displayed, one simply has to check online. But then, even if I display a licence, you would have to check because I could forge it... So displaying a paper means nothing.

 

Yet to overstay is a different violation of the licence. You are choosing to not move.

 

I've said for a long time that spotting isn't even good enough. We ultimately should have something equivalent to trackers if we want to actually prove movement. This will upset people but that gives a clearer display of what's happening to a boat...

 

If I happened to put different licence numbers in my windows every so often, the spotter won't know any better. 

 

At least with fixed trackers, it would be very easy to say Boat A hasn't moved enough distance over X months and therefore is invalidating their licence agreements.  Then you have the exact evidence to begin and process removals. 

 

Id also be considerate for tighter enforcement of personal circumstances. But I'd like to see CRTs data on how many overstay requests are made and what categories they fall into, along with length of extensions etc. before making a hard opinion on that. My anecdotal evidence is that people abuse the system, but I'm aware there's a bubble of my experience and not the full picture.

4 hours ago, Gybe Ho said:

 

The CRT Commission noted there are 4000 unlicensed boats on the system and presumably unlicensed boats are the tip of the mooring-overstay iceberg.

 

As society starts to unravel more people will be able to deceive themselves into portraying their CRT license evasion or mooring overstay rule breaking as a noble philosophy and protest against the elite. Look at the plummeting BBC TV license income for further evidence of this social trend.

I also find it hard to believe there's 'only' 4000 boats. I'm not sure why, but it feels like that figure is too low. Maybe more people pay than I think, just to avoid being 'outside the system'. It's easier to abuse something when you're apparently showing good faith of paying I guess?

 

Unfortunately when CRT published a comment about how their spreadsheet formula had incorrectly gauged a percent of non payers as lower than the real number, it puts the whole number into question.

Edited January 6 by Unicorn Stampede

[Lady M]

For Unicorn Stampede, as the requirement to display a boat licence is based on the byelaws, a specific change would be needed to remove it.  Additionally, the requirement appears in the lease held by my boat club for the premises they lease from CRT.  This makes me think that it could be in other leases.  The facility to check if a licence is held for a particular boat that was on the CRT website was withdrawn some time ago.  When out and about on the canal system, if you moor near another boat that is displaying a current licence, this does offer some reassurance that the boat has had both insurance and a recent BSS in place during the last year.

[LadyG]

I was stopped at a manned River lock because I had not updated my insurance policy. So there are checks.

I was under the impression one must have boat number displayed but not current licence .. my licence post-it is about five years.old and faded.

Edited January 6 by LadyG

[Gybe Ho]

35 minutes ago, Unicorn Stampede said:

 

Unfortunately when CRT published a comment about how their spreadsheet formula had incorrectly gauged a percent of non payers as lower than the real number, it puts the whole number into question.

 

 

Ok. I hope that was just a maths error and the underlying figure of 4000 boats is based on direct observation of delinquent boats.

[rgreg]

3 hours ago, Arthur Marshall said:

 

Which is why it's barmy that CRT don't insist on the licence being shown, and also daft that they scrapped the display of a mooring permit, especially now there's a premium for CCs.

That's the difference between what looks like a really good idea in an office, and what reality is like.

I agree. The increase in unlicensed boats is alarming and having to display a valid licence may encourage some of those evaders to purchase one. Whilst many won't care, some may bow to peer pressure or actually find a conscience.

[Mike Todd]

1 hour ago, Unicorn Stampede said:

We don't display our licences. Truthfully I don't think it makes any difference. No one on the towpath is going to challenge you (especially not after the murder which happened previously to a spotter). 

 

Much in the way tax discs in cars have been replaced, the idea of a paper licence is also out of date. Truthfully the specifics of that detail for CRT just need to be updated. 

 

I'm not sure there's an robust argument for, overstayers = licence display. For a lack of licence displayed, one simply has to check online. But then, even if I display a licence, you would have to check because I could forge it... So displaying a paper means nothing.

 

Yet to overstay is a different violation of the licence. You are choosing to not move.

 

I've said for a long time that spotting isn't even good enough. We ultimately should have something equivalent to trackers if we want to actually prove movement. This will upset people but that gives a clearer display of what's happening to a boat...

 

If I happened to put different licence numbers in my windows every so often, the spotter won't know any better. 

 

At least with fixed trackers, it would be very easy to say Boat A hasn't moved enough distance over X months and therefore is invalidating their licence agreements.  Then you have the exact evidence to begin and process removals. 

 

Id also be considerate for tighter enforcement of personal circumstances. But I'd like to see CRTs data on how many overstay requests are made and what categories they fall into, along with length of extensions etc. before making a hard opinion on that. My anecdotal evidence is that people abuse the system, but I'm aware there's a bubble of my experience and not the full picture.

I also find it hard to believe there's 'only' 4000 boats. I'm not sure why, but it feels like that figure is too low. Maybe more people pay than I think, just to avoid being 'outside the system'. It's easier to abuse something when you're apparently showing good faith of paying I guess?

 

Unfortunately when CRT published a comment about how their spreadsheet formula had incorrectly gauged a percent of non payers as lower than the real number, it puts the whole number into question.

There really is little reason for not having a licence. If the boater is on limited means, especially if already in receipt of various state benefits, then they can get the licence paid for them by local authority (?) In general Citizens Advice are well familiar with is but also NBTA have made this a particular issue.

13 minutes ago, rgreg said:

I agree. The increase in unlicensed boats is alarming and having to display a valid licence may encourage some of those evaders to purchase one. Whilst many won't care, some may bow to peer pressure or actually find a conscience.

Not sure how it would play out . . .  CaRT check boats regularly and in general know quite well where there are unlicenced boats - of course it is a bit harder than with more static 'debts' as boats can move! (If you have ever tried to find a particular boat from a general idea of where it is you will know how long it can take!)

 

If a boat is unlicenced then this opens the way for more immediate action by CaRT in comparison with 'simple' overstayers. The problem is, as always, money. CaRT have to keep within their enforcement budget and it really is expensive. Hence the primary aim to be get raise compliance. It is not just about getting more income, welcome though it would be. An unlicenced boat is likely also to be uninsured which brings a whole lot more issues.

 

Anyone pressing for higher levels of enforcement should be up front in saying how much more on their licence fee would they be prepared to pay for this to happen. The answer is usually none, accompanied by a suggestion of what not to spend. Since the budget item they would raid is usually not one they see a need for it means that they are really asking someone else to pay for that which they are not prepared themselves to stump up!

[magnetman]

It's quite likely that a lot of licence evasion has nothing to do with financial means. 

 

There definitely is a group of people who take the view that the CRT are an authority which is too be disrespected so if the enforcement is lax they just choose not to pay. This is an attitude problem. 

 

It's a bit awkward really, The CRT need to sort this out as it is basic abuse of land that they are in control of. 

 

If the person genuinely can not pay and that are a citizen they can claim Universal Credit and the DwP will pay for the licence under the housing element of UC.

 

If people are that disorganised they can't or are unwilling to access state funds then is it really appropriate for a navigation authority to be subsidising them?

 

No.

 

 

Edited January 6 by magnetman

[ditchcrawler]

1 hour ago, Unicorn Stampede said:

We don't display our licences. Truthfully I don't think it makes any difference. No one on the towpath is going to challenge you (especially not after the murder which happened previously to a spotter). 

 

Much in the way tax discs in cars have been replaced, the idea of a paper licence is also out of date. Truthfully the specifics of that detail for CRT just need to be updated. 

 

 

 

 

Key Statistics and Trends

• Before Abolition (2013): The evasion rate was approximately 0.6%, representing around 210,000 untaxed vehicles on the road.
• After Abolition (2017): The rate surged to 1.8%, or an estimated 700,000 to 755,000 vehicles, costing the government around £107 million a year in lost revenue.
• Recent Figures (2021): The evasion rate was 1.8% of vehicles, corresponding to 719,000 unlicensed vehicles, resulting in a potential revenue loss of £119 million.
• Latest Figures (2023): The estimated number of unlicensed vehicles in active stock was approximately 498,000, or 1.2% of all vehicles, suggesting some improvement from earlier post-abolition peaks, though still a major increase from pre-2014 levels. 

[rgreg]

10 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

 

Not sure how it would play out . . .  CaRT check boats regularly and in general know quite well where there are unlicenced boats - of course it is a bit harder than with more static 'debts' as boats can move! (If you have ever tried to find a particular boat from a general idea of where it is you will know how long it can take!)

 

My point is about peer pressure and conscience encouraging evaders to purchase a licence if it has to be displayed, not CRT enforcement implications.