BW vs Davies

[sueb]

Perhaps BW don't want to provide more moorings for liveaboards. There is no reason why they should. Just because people want to live on the canals isn't a real reason.

Sue

[romarni123]

Perhaps BW don't want to provide more moorings for liveaboards. There is no reason why they should. Just because people want to live on the canals isn't a real reason.

Sue

There is no reason why they shouldnt either.BW will willingly let me live on a leisure mooring as long as I pay cash direct to them.

Edited May 30, 2011 by romarni123

[ymu]

You would have to have signs in every area because if boaters cant go in one area they will just move to another with out restictions.Boaters will not move off the water because BW make them move it will be because living on the land has become just as cheap.People move on and off the water all the time which is why there is give or take the same ammount of boats about according to the boat check.The housing crisis has nothing to do with boats other wise people would use the money they buy a boat with for rent on land.Most people buy boats because they love em they think the life style is great some in london might do it for economic reasons but I think most do it because they want to.

It's not a money issue. CCers who can't afford moorings can claim housing benefit on the costs. For most, it's probably not about affordability at all. We'd spend less if we had a basic mooring because of what we'd save in travel expenses, and if it had shoreline we'd save a fortune on diesel to cover the extra cost of that too.

 

CCers who want moorings usually just can't find moorings. Money doesn't really come into it. We have a benefits system that subsidises employers in rich areas by making it unnecessary to pay their workers enough to live where they work. You can use it to pay for moorings and boat licence the same as you can a home on land.

 

Perhaps BW don't want to provide more moorings for liveaboards. There is no reason why they should. Just because people want to live on the canals isn't a real reason.

Sue

The other option is building on the Green Belt, also now going ahead.

 

Canal nimbyism does not trump national housing needs. It's not an infrastructure we can afford to waste.

 

There is no reason why they shouldnt either.BW will willingly let me live on a leisure mooring as long as I pay cash direct to them.

More residential moorings, on-line because few people would pay to live sandwiched with another boat either side, is what's needed. And it's be a huge source of revenue for BW too. There's only so much demand for marinas, and most of them are not offering residential moorings anyway.

 

Perhaps they should gradually get planning permission on their leisure moorings and (somehow) prioritise live-aboards for allocation?

Edited May 30, 2011 by ymu

[romarni123]

It's not a money issue. COVers who can't afford moorings can claim housing benefit on the costs. For most, it's probably not about affordability at all. We'd spend less if we had a basic mooring because of what we'd save in travel expenses, and if it had shoreline we'd save a fortune on diesel to cover the extra cost of that too.

 

CCers who want moorings usually just can't find moorings. Money doesn't really come into it. We have a benefits system that subsidises employers in rich areas by making it unnecessary to pay their workers enough to live where they work. You can use it to pay for moorings and boat licence the same as you can a home on land.

Well technically you cant, it is against the local council's policy to live on a mooring without planning permission.which is why it can be very difficult to claim HB for a mooring not impossible but difficult.You can for winter moorings as long as the mooring is less than six months because BW would have to apply for temporary change of use to protect the rural areas from sliding into disarray so our local council officer tells us.Anyone homeless can apply to a council where they have a good local connection for help under the rent gaurentee scheme for a deposit on a home.they pay the up front fees and you pay them back bit by bit.What we save in deisel genny power pays for our mooring not having to buy a licence helps as well

Edited May 30, 2011 by romarni123

[ymu]

Well technically you cant, it is against the local council's policy to live on a mooring without planning permission.which is why it can be very difficult to claim HB for a mooring not impossible but difficult.You can for winter moorings as long as the mooring is less than six months because BW would have to apply for temporary change of use to protect the rural areas from sliding into disarray so our local council officer tells us.Anyone homeless can apply to a council where they have a good local connection for help under the rent gaurentee scheme for a deposit on a home.they pay the up front fees and you pay them back bit by bit.What we save in deisel genny power pays for our mooring not having to buy a licence helps as well

Yes, sorry. Should have been clearer. It's residential moorings that are required by CCers who would need to claim HB. That's why those who want moorings don't have them - there aren't any. The cost is largely irrelevant.

[romarni123]

BW isn't a housing authority and the cost of a liveaboard moving to land is negligible when compared to the enforcement costs. Any other costs have nothing to do with BW. It would be different if BW was paid to provide housing but it isn't.

Sue

yes but if BW provided residential moorings at a reasonable cost they would have less enforcement costs as people would live on them

[Midnight Rider]

No but by allowing liveaboards, such as yourself, to live on their waterways, they are accepting the responsibility of a landlord.

Unless they have a residential mooring, I would have thought not. C.Cers are just making a progressive journey round the system surely? === I know, don't call me Shirley ===

 

There is no reason why they shouldnt either.BW will willingly let me live on a leisure mooring as long as I pay cash direct to them.

But will they, or are they just turning a blind eye for profit?

[romarni123]

Unless they have a residential mooring, I would have thought not. C.Cars are just making a progressive journey round the system surely? === I know, don't call me Shirley ===

 

 

But will they, or are they just turning a blind eye for profit?

Turning a blind eye for profit.The problems start when you need to claim HB BW suddenly go all puritanical

Edited May 30, 2011 by romarni123

[ymu]

The 1995 Act requires BW to facilitate people living on their waterways, by allowing them to be CCers. It's up to BW whether or not to allow residential moorings, but it has no choice about allowing CCers. BW has no powers to make further restrictions than those placed on CCers by the 1995 Act.

 

That will not necessarily prevent them trying to make life more difficult for CCers than the law allows anyway.

Edited May 30, 2011 by ymu

[romarni123]

The 1995 Act requires BW to facilitate people living on their waterways, by allowing them to be CCers. It's up to BW whether or not to allow residential moorings, but it has no choice about allowing CCers. BW has no powers to make further restrictions than those placed on CCers by the 1995 Act.

 

That will not necessarily prevent them trying to make life more difficult for CCers than the law allows anyway.

Or ccers making life more difficult for themselves?? does the act say that?? I know by law they have to keep the waterways open for navigation

[ymu]

Or ccers making life more difficult for themselves?? does the act say that?? I know by law they have to keep the waterways open for navigation

I wasn't aware of CCers blocking navigations?

 

All I mean is that BW have to issue a licence to someone who can satisfy the board - or if necessary a court - that they are complying with the 1995 Act. The guidance is irrelevant, as possibly are the L&S proposals if they don't have the force of law (I can't see how they do, as they go way further than the 1995 Act).

 

Yes, some 'fake' CCers have caused this problem, along with a greater number of people with paper moorings.

 

That says absolutely nothing about what all CCers or all paper-moorers are up to, or what the law allows them to do. BW cannot restrict us further than the 1995 Act and they know it. It'll just affect us if the number of boats paying licence fees are reduced, and the number of economically viable canal businesses goes down, and more general taxation is spent on housing benefit because of even greater upward pressure on land-based rents.

[alan_fincher]

Yes, some 'fake' CCers have caused this problem, along with a greater number of people with paper moorings.

I haven;t the stamina to re-trawl 800 plus posts to see if there ever was an answer to the question, (certainly not from a slightly dodgy on-board connection), so I'll try again.....

 

What is your evidence for this apparently large number of boaters out there who have "paper moorings" that they never use.

 

You say there are more of them than "fake CC-ers", so on what basis do you reach that rather remarkable conclusion ?

 

I'm not saying the concept doesn't exist at all, but I challenge you again to prove that there are significant numbers of people with "paper moorings" that are out there causing all these problems.

 

(Note: The fact that it can be established that there are some people with a legitimate mooring elsewhere that sometimes get ticketed as overs-tayers on visitor moorings has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm asking. ....... Unless you can somehow prove those people never use their legitimate moorings, which I very much doubt you can).

[romarni123]

I wasn't aware of CCers blocking navigations?

 

All I mean is that BW have to issue a licence to someone who can satisfy the board - or if necessary a court - that they are complying with the 1995 Act. The guidance is irrelevant, as possibly are the L&S proposals if they don't have the force of law (I can't see how they do, as they go way further than the 1995 Act).

 

Yes, some 'fake' CCers have caused this problem, along with a greater number of people with paper moorings.

 

That says absolutely nothing about what all CCers or all paper-moorers are up to, or what the law allows them to do. BW cannot restrict us further than the 1995 Act and they know it. It'll just affect us if the number of boats paying licence fees are reduced, and the number of economically viable canal businesses goes down, and more general taxation is spent on housing benefit because of even greater upward pressure on land-based rents.

I never said ccers were blocking navigations. I said CCers make life difficult for themselves by not ccing within the rules other wise BW tend to leave you alone. in 7 years I never had a problem with BW that wasnt my own doing.I would leave the paper mooring alone if I was you you dont have a leg to stand on.The canal business will go down the pan for more reasons than boaters.Theres about 7000 ccers if they all left the water for land based homes taking the country as a whole it would hardly make a dent in the problem or the taxation, compared to what is lost through mis managment on the whole.

[ymu]

I haven;t the stamina to re-trawl 800 plus posts to see if there ever was an answer to the question, (certainly not from a slightly dodgy on-board connection), so I'll try again.....

 

What is your evidence for this apparently large number of boaters out there who have "paper moorings" that they never use.

 

You say there are more of them than "fake CC-ers", so on what basis do you reach that rather remarkable conclusion ?

 

I'm not saying the concept doesn't exist at all, but I challenge you again to prove that there are significant numbers of people with "paper moorings" that are out there causing all these problems.

 

(Note: The fact that it can be established that there are some people with a legitimate mooring elsewhere that sometimes get ticketed as overs-tayers on visitor moorings has absolutely nothing to do with what I'm asking. ....... Unless you can somehow prove those people never use their legitimate moorings, which I very much doubt you can).

The only evidence we have is the figures BW have released, both of which have been discussed a number of times on this thread and on multiple other threads on these boards.

 

The K&A FOIA revealed more enforcement notices for casual mooring offences issued to those with mooring permits than to those without.

 

The L&S consultation documents note that only 7% of visitor moorings are occupied by CCers (implying that 93% were taken up by those with mooring permits and holiday boats). I haven't seen this document, so I'm not sure of the exact wording/interpretation.

 

You're welcome to put whatever FOIA you like in to get better evidence, or offer evidence of your own if you think I'm missing something. It's all the hard evidence I know of. But I don't even know why you think its implausible. As shown on this thread, BW don't have the powers, currently, to stop those with moorings from bridge-hopping. You can pick up a mooring in an unpopular area for peanuts. Certainly a lot less than we spend on travel because we stick to the CC rules. If you're inclined to take the piss, you're best off getting a cheap mooring and do so with impunity.

 

Which is why BW need to address it, of course.

 

In fact, I believe the judge gave Paul Davies until the end of June to comply or remove his boat from BW waters. He's been putting bids in on moorings near Bath. He should just get one near Hull and see if it works. Might even do us all a favour by getting this nonsense looked at.

Edited May 30, 2011 by ymu

[romarni123]

The L&S is differant to the rest of the system because you are allowed to have a rivers only and in a small area the facts and stat will be differant to the system as a whole which will show a differant picture

[ymu]

The L&S is differant to the rest of the system because you are allowed to have a rivers only and in a small area the facts and stat will be differant to the system as a whole which will show a differant picture

It's the same BW Act, I think.

[romarni123]

It's the same BW Act, I think.

It is but as they have rivers only licences it stands to reason they will only be on the river,Just not moving enough to satisfy the board of their intention to be on a bona fide cruise.I think you should do a foi request asking if on the whole of the system how many boaters with moorings get tickets for breaking the rules, I think you would be shocked at the results, but at least you would have facts to back up your statements.you will either be right or wrong but you cant argue a point using the L&S information.

[alan_fincher]

The only evidence we have is the figures BW have released, both of which have been discussed a number of times on this thread and on multiple other threads on these boards.

 

The K&A FOIA revealed more enforcement notices for casual mooring offences issued to those with mooring permits than to those without.

 

The L&S consultation documents note that only 7% of visitor moorings are occupied by CCers (implying that 93% were taken up by those with mooring permits and holiday boats). I haven't seen this document, so I'm not sure of the exact wording/interpretation.

So what basis do you have for concluding from either of those bits of "data", that the people who have a permanent mooring in fact only have a "paper" permanent mooring that they never actually go and use ?

 

Unless you know more than you have just said above, you have not one jot of evidence that that is the case, do you ?

 

I fail to see how you can expect to be taken seriously when you keep implying over and over again that people relying on "paper moorings" exist in large numbers, when there is not any available evidence to suggest they exist in any significant numbers at all. (Huge numbers of people rent legitimate moorings, and because they are the vast majority of boaters, it stands to reason that quite a number of infringements at other locations will be down to them - the fact that infringements occur therefore proves absolutely nothing at all!).

 

If this is so easy, and cheap, to arrange, why are whole swathes of CC-ers not doing it, at minimal cost, to give themselves greater flexibility about not having to move on ?

 

I'd suggest it is because for you or I to actually go and rent a "paper mooring", that BW would fall for hook, line and sinker, and actually accept as being a recognised mooring site, is really not very easy at all!

 

I think more nonsense has been spouted in this thread than any other I have seen in a very long while, to be honest!

[ymu]

It is but as they have rivers only licences it stands to reason they will only be on the river,Just not moving enough to satisfy the board of their intention to be on a bona fide cruise.I think you should do a foi request asking if on the whole of the system how many boaters with moorings get tickets for breaking the rules, I think you would be shocked at the results, but at least you would have facts to back up your statements.you will either be right or wrong but you cant argue a point using the L&S information.

I'm using the K&A FOIA to show that more moorers than CCers get ticketed.

 

I'm using the L&S consultation to show that complaints about lack of empty visitor moorings for tourists is not being caused by CCers over-using them.

 

I'd love a FoIA on all ticketing, but I can't see why the K&A would be different. The west end of it is the most complained about stretch of canal anywhere AFAIK, so you'd expect it to be a pretty good picture of what is happening in an area where bridge-hopping is common.

 

So what basis do you have for concluding from either of those bits of "data", that the people who have a permanent mooring in fact only have a "paper" permanent mooring that they never actually go and use ?

 

Unless you know more than you have just said above, you have not one jot of evidence that that is the case, do you ?

 

I fail to see how you can expect to be taken seriously when you keep implying over and over again that people relying on "paper moorings" exist in large numbers, when there is not any available evidence to suggest they exist in any significant numbers at all. (Huge numbers of people rent legitimate moorings, and because they are the vast majority of boaters, it stands to reason that quite a number of infringements at other locations will be down to them - the fact that infringements occur therefore proves absolutely nothing at all!).

 

If this is so easy, and cheap, to arrange, why are whole swathes of CC-ers not doing it, at minimal cost, to give themselves greater flexibility about not having to move on ?

 

I'd suggest it is because for you or I to actually go and rent a "paper mooring", that BW would fall for hook, line and sinker, and actually accept as being a recognised mooring site, is really not very easy at all!

 

I think more nonsense has been spouted in this thread than any other I have seen in a very long while, to be honest!

There two different things here. People with cheap paper-moorings that don't exist and people with cheap real moorings which do exist but that they never use - or may even sublet to create a paper-mooring for themself.

 

It doesn't matter. I'm referring to people with moorings that don't return to them for long periods of time, if at all, and bridge-hop in a more expensive area where no moorings are available because that's where they want to be and they don't want to even pretend to comply with the CC rules.

 

 

I think there are large numbers of people doing this primarily because the FOIA for the K&A revealed more casual mooring offences for those with moorings than for CCers. You can't just scale it up because those with moorings can afford to be cheekier without any proceedings started, but it seems reasonable to estimate that there are several thousand of them if they are out-ticketing 7,000 CCers.

[romarni123]

I'm using the K&A FOIA to show that more moorers than CCers get ticketed.

 

I'm using the L&S consultation to show that complaints about lack of empty visitor moorings for tourists is not being caused by CCers over-using them.

 

I'd love a FoIA on all ticketing, but I can't see why the K&A would be different. The west end of it is the most complained about stretch of canal anywhere AFAIK, so you'd expect it to be a pretty good picture of what is happening in an area where bridge-hopping is common.

Not really, i still say you have to use the facts for the whole system. Heres an example at fazely there are 5 day and 48hr moorings next to each other who do you think is plonked on them permently errrr ccers when i was there last year there were 15 boats all ccers on the visitor moorings and had been for a minimum 2 years one bloke was there for 7 years thats why i say you need the whole system facts.Its easy to use figures from a small sample to show something but when you have the whole picture the out come is vastly differant

 

WELL i AM OFF, THE LAST ONE UP PUT THE LIGHT OUT.Bugger caps lock

Edited May 30, 2011 by romarni123

[ymu]

I agree completely. I've invited several people to put in a FOIA. I might get around to it one day, but it's not me getting all excited about it. I'm quite happy that what evidence there is says exactly what you'd expect it to say.

 

If you want the evidence, you are free to ask for it: www.whatdotheyknow.com

[ymu]

The Davies judgement is rather good for us personally, thinking about it. Our general plan is to head for family and friends in one far flung corner or another, spend a summer with them, and then head off to the next summer destination.

 

Now that we know it is safe to ignore the BW guidance (judge has said a pattern which falls short of it but complies with the law could be envisaged), we can CC as we would prefer to. That is, when we get to an area we would like to spend a lot of time in, we can legitimately move from one stretch of moorings to the next, regardless of what BW says is a 'location'. And it's entirely legitimate to include spending a long time in one area, in the course of many years navigation, so no reason not to move up and down for a while, over a suitably large number of 'places', of course. I see no reason why my niecelets should not get as many cruises from Bath to Bristol as I wish to offer them over the warmer months when we visit them.

 

It was a terrible case for Paul Davies, and useful for those who wish to stay just on the right side of not being Paul Davies (these people should just buy up the cheap moorings BW can't get rid of, since it matters not where the mooring is, it makes them untouchable).

 

But for Ccers like us, it is excellent news. The board does not have to be satisfied, only a judge and the 1995 Act. I have a precedent.

Edited May 31, 2011 by ymu

[ymu]

Shed-loads of cheap BW auctions for moorings that would save the average law-abiding CCer more cash than they cost if they really want to be able to stay in one area. This is stuff that comes in at £135/month (£1600) or less, based on my diesel outgoings for having to travel to the office (occasionally) from often a long way away. Others might want to calculate their threshold from savings on season tickets, collecting post, or whatever.

 

We're 65', but I've included anything long enough to be live-aboardable for a single person.

 

49' £942

 

49' £1003

 

68' £1459

 

43' £852

 

57' £898

 

42' £1100

 

65' £1603

 

72' £1336

 

71' £1667

 

39' £860

 

65' £1400

 

There's a few there that would leave us £100-300/year better off and several no worse off, if we weren't genuinely travelling the system anyway and believe we would have trouble convincing a judge that this was the case.

 

So, there you go Middle England. Be careful what you wish for. There might be more demand - and higher prices - for those cheap mooring spots when CCers catch onto the trick. Ample opportunities to do so.

Edited May 31, 2011 by ymu

[ymu]

Perhaps we should have a sticky for CCers to swap hot tips on cheap moorings to circumvent the rules.

[mayalld]

BW cannot restrict us further than the 1995 Act and they know it.

 

Yet you demand that they require a statement from moorers that they have no power to demand before issuing a licence?

 

Isn't that rather hypocritical?

 

The 1995 Act requires BW to facilitate people living on their waterways, by allowing them to be CCers.

 

It requires no such thing.

 

It requires them to ALLOW people to be CCers.

 

There is nothing that says a CCer must be a liveaboard (there are quite a few people who CC, moving the boat every weekend, then returning home), and there is no requirement to "facilitate" anything.

 

The only legal requirement imposed on BW is to keep cruising waterways primarily available for leisure use.