The Canals Are Alive

[nicknorman]

Hi Nick,

 

did you also point out to the guy that as boaters, we also contribute above our licence fee costs when paying our taxes. Therefore, in order of priority, boaters should still be given credit for their contribution to the waterways!

 

Mike

No I didn't because the main thrust of his argument was that licence fees are a drop in the ocean, but yes we do contribute by means of taxation, but then so do an awful lot of people who never go near a canal, so perhaps that is an argument not to be promulgated too much!. Anyway, I was too traumatised -see my more recent thread. This conversation was 5 mins after the lock altercation and my testosterone was all used up!

Edited April 4, 2012 by nicknorman

[Night Hawk]

Oh I've so missed this forum - most threads seem to start of with the best intentions but soon end up bickering and moaning...

 

I am in full agreement with the OP...

 

A x

[RLWP]

Oh I've so missed this forum - most threads seem to start of with the best intentions but soon end up bickering and moaning...

 

I am in full agreement with the OP...

 

A x

 

No you're not!

 

Richard

 

[Guest]

 

If you think that the canal will suddenly die a death without drunken people on hire boats MJG then you are perfectly entitled to your opinion.

I dont agree with you and certainly dont wish to end of.

 

A Child called It...it would seem.

 

Well given that is not what you actually said, your OP referred to hirers 'period'.

 

Plus I have no idea what that that last line means other than I assume it is some kind of veiled insult that I can't be arsed to google...

[ditchcrawler]

No I didn't because the main thrust of his argument was that licence fees are a drop in the ocean, but yes we do contribute by means of taxation, but then so do an awful lot of people who never go near a canal, so perhaps that is an argument not to be promulgated too much!. Anyway, I was too traumatised -see my more recent thread. This conversation was 5 mins after the lock altercation and my testosterone was all used up!

I think this is the world we now live in.

[dor]

His line was that his "customers" were essentially 4 groups, walkers, cyclists, fishermen and boaters, with the latter by no means the most important - he considered them to be all equal.

 

I can see some validity in this point of view. But only some.

 

What people miss when they spout this line is that without the boats, canals would cease to be an attraction to many of the other users. Anglers might think it would be wonderful without the boats, until they found the canals had degenerated to where they were before the revival of boating. In my experience, walkers like the canals because of the boats, the colour, the activity. Would they be as keen to walk alongside a stagnant ditch?

 

 

With regard to drunks being in charge of hire boats, try taking a day out at Norbury Junction on the Shropshire Union Canal in the summer, when the day boats are let loose! Not only are they overcrowded, but the amount of beer that we've witnessed being loaded aboard doesn't indicate that they're starting a local delivery round for other boaters.

 

Think yourself lucky Mike that you have Hack Green between you and the Nantwich/Barbridge/Bunbury day boats!

[Paul C]

I can see some validity in this point of view. But only some.

 

What people miss when they spout this line is that without the boats, canals would cease to be an attraction to many of the other users. Anglers might think it would be wonderful without the boats, until they found the canals had degenerated to where they were before the revival of boating. In my experience, walkers like the canals because of the boats, the colour, the activity. Would they be as keen to walk alongside a stagnant ditch?

 

Good point - and one which helps to explain the funding gap between the licence fee x number of boats, and the difference between keeping a canal navigable, rather than just 'in water'.

 

 

Think yourself lucky Mike that you have Hack Green between you and the Nantwich/Barbridge/Bunbury day boats!

 

 

Of course....nothing worse than a hire boat.....except a day boat! However, sometimes experienced people who are perfectly competent at driving a narrowboat considerately hire day boats (probably the exception rather than the rule though).

Edited April 4, 2012 by Paul C

[KirraMisha]

Well given that is not what you actually said, your OP referred to hirers 'period'.

 

Plus I have no idea what that that last line means other than I assume it is some kind of veiled insult that I can't be arsed to google...

Wrong again Martin.

I actually made a point of saying I dont think this of all hirers.

 

The last line was actually a bit tounge and cheek and not a veiled insult (another one of your assumptions) I have no bad feeling towards you just because we have different opinions.

I wish you all the best!

A Child called It is a book about a child called it.

For the record my experience was actually with a day boat not a holiday boat.

Edited April 4, 2012 by KirraMisha

[Guest]

Wrong again Martin.

I actually made a point of saying I dont think this of all hirers.

 

The lasy line was actually a bit tounge and cheek and not a veiled insult (another one of your assumptions) I have no bad feeling towards you just because we have different opinions.

I wish you all the best!

A Child called It is a book about a child called it.

For the record my experience was actually with a day boat not a holiday boat.

 

OK then let's look at your original post -

 

I was giving the boat a clean today and a hire boat came past around 12 noon all well and truley on their way to being plastered looking in the wrong direction behind them and missed the bank by an inch! Could have been another boat!

So I dont entirely share the joys of hireboats and cant help thinking if they owned a share in the boat they were steering even the whole boat they would perhaps even pretend to give a damn.

 

I very much doubt the canals would grind to a halt without them.

 

I am not saying all hire boaters are like this obviously.

 

If what you are now claiming is that you were differentiating between all hirers and drunken hirers why didn't you do this previously?

 

Oh and I'm familiar with the book of that particular name - of what particular relevance is that?

[KirraMisha]

OK then let's look at your original post -

 

 

 

If what you are now claiming is that you were differentiating between all hirers and drunken hirers why didn't you do this previously?

 

Oh and I'm familiar with the book of that particular name - of what particular relevance is that?

 

Come on Martin!

 

Its obvious I was refering to drunken boaters and then I made a point of saying not all hirers!

 

I am happy to agree to disagree and move on if we may?

 

I was called childish and it, thats the only relevance.

[Guest]

Come on Martin!

 

Its obvious I was refering to drunken boaters and then I made a point of saying not all hirers!

 

I am happy to agree to disagree and move on if we may?

 

I was called childish and it, thats the only relevance.

 

Yes I'm happy to disagree with you that it was obvious....

[KirraMisha]

Yes I'm happy to disagree with you that it was obvious....

Ok Martin

[Guest]

Ok Martin

 

You're welcome,

 

I was going to add some patronising emotioncons too but thought better of it...

[Cheshire cat]

The operator of the Norbury dayboats owns a shiney boat but it's out of harms way in a marina on the south coast. The bad news is they've bought another one from Anglo Welsh over the winter.

[David Mack]

No I didn't because the main thrust of his argument was that licence fees are a drop in the ocean, but yes we do contribute by means of taxation, but then so do an awful lot of people who never go near a canal, so perhaps that is an argument not to be promulgated too much!. Anyway, I was too traumatised -see my more recent thread. This conversation was 5 mins after the lock altercation and my testosterone was all used up!

 

The sums boaters pay may not be BW's major source of income, but they are hardly a "drop in the ocean".

 

Reference to the latest BW Report and Accounts shows that BW's licence and mooring income was some £23.7m out of a total income of £176.5m. In addition boaters will be contributing directly or indirectly to some of the other listed income sources such as BWML profits, BW's retail sales and rental income from BW property let to boatyards etc.

 

By comparison, BW's income from grants - which includes the taxpayer funded element - was £58.9m.

 

So the picture of the taxpayer covering most of BW's costs, with boaters making only a token contribution is simply untrue. Boaters contribute something like 30% of the boater+taxpayer income.

 

 

And as Dor has said, if canals were not maintained in navigable condition, then many sections would have gone, and be no longer available to walkers, anglers and all the rest. Lets not forget that the Rochdale and Huddersfield restorations required the removal of buildings built on the canal line at Failsworth, Stalybridge and Huddersfield, and more would have gone if the canal societies hadn't lobbied for restoration for some years before physical work started. How many more urban sections of canal would simply have disappeared under bricks and mortar if it hadn't been for boaters?

 

David

[nicknorman]

The sums boaters pay may not be BW's major source of income, but they are hardly a "drop in the ocean".

 

Reference to the latest BW Report and Accounts shows that BW's licence and mooring income was some £23.7m out of a total income of £176.5m. In addition boaters will be contributing directly or indirectly to some of the other listed income sources such as BWML profits, BW's retail sales and rental income from BW property let to boatyards etc.

 

By comparison, BW's income from grants - which includes the taxpayer funded element - was £58.9m.

 

So the picture of the taxpayer covering most of BW's costs, with boaters making only a token contribution is simply untrue. Boaters contribute something like 30% of the boater+taxpayer income.

 

 

And as Dor has said, if canals were not maintained in navigable condition, then many sections would have gone, and be no longer available to walkers, anglers and all the rest. Lets not forget that the Rochdale and Huddersfield restorations required the removal of buildings built on the canal line at Failsworth, Stalybridge and Huddersfield, and more would have gone if the canal societies hadn't lobbied for restoration for some years before physical work started. How many more urban sections of canal would simply have disappeared under bricks and mortar if it hadn't been for boaters?

 

David

Well to be fair to the gentleman the discussion was about the licence fee contribution, not the other contributions you mention. But I suspect the cost of keeping the waterways in navigable condition and not reverting to stinking ditches would be less if there were no boats to damage the infrastructure nor to require 3 square bollards each side of a narrow lock etc!

 

I would say that definitely anglers and cyclists, and almost certainly walkers ( many of whom regard the canal as a linear dog's lavatory) would be unphased if there were no boats, or only cardboard replicas of boats with RnJ painted on. The small children gaping in awe as a boat goes up or down a lock would lose out but then they don't pay tax.

 

But don't shoot the messenger, I was just reporting what he said.

Edited April 4, 2012 by nicknorman

[Maffi]

Yeah, I second that toast. Walked up Napton to Marston Doles this morning and a couple of hire boats were working their way up that.

 

What really struck me last weekend as we came up from Cowley to Tring in rhe abnormally warm sunshine was how much the canal was enjoyed by multitudes of walkers, joggers and cyclists. It was great to see.

 

 

Did you not notice all the doggie doo doo on the flight?

[Night Hawk]

No you're not!

 

Richard

 

 

Yes I am, and you drive too fast!

 

 

 

 

[jelunga]

The Canals would be nothing without boats and boaters. Just an empty stretch of dirty water.

Would you visit a preserved railway with no locos or trains? It would be just two parallel lines of unexciting steel. No smell, no motion, no signals moving.

 

A canal with no boats would be the same.

[Graham Davis]

The bad news is they've bought another one from Anglo Welsh over the winter.

 

I don't understand why that is bad news.

Please explain.

[nicknorman]

The Canals would be nothing without boats and boaters. Just an empty stretch of dirty water.

Would you visit a preserved railway with no locos or trains? It would be just two parallel lines of unexciting steel. No smell, no motion, no signals moving.

 

A canal with no boats would be the same.

Just down the cut from our marina is Kingsbury water park (flooded gravel working I think). It is always chocca with fishermen, walkers and cyclists despite there being no boats. They wander down to the cut to gawp at the boats churning up the mud at the winding point for 5 mins then back to the large 2-dimensional dogs lavatory.

 

Of course we on this forum all like to see, and would miss if not there, the boats. But sorry but I think we are deluding ourselves if we think the general public would miss boats much

[Doorman]

Just down the cut from our marina is Kingsbury water park (flooded gravel working I think). It is always chocca with fishermen, walkers and cyclists despite there being no boats. They wander down to the cut to gawp at the boats churning up the mud at the winding point for 5 mins then back to the large 2-dimensional dogs lavatory.

 

Of course we on this forum all like to see, and would miss if not there, the boats. But sorry but I think we are deluding ourselves if we think the general public would miss boats much

 

I'll never forget an occasion when we were enjoying a cool pint of falling down water at The Junction Inn, where as the name suggests, is situated overlooking Norbury Junction on the Shropshire Union Canal. After cruising some three miles along the cut and being subjected to the miserable faces on the fishermen, whom were competing in a rehearsal for a national angling competition, we arrived at the junction to find the beer garden packed with people, mostly anglers who had completed their day's enjoyment on the towpath.

 

The language from these gentlement was atrocious, considering that apart from them, the garden was populated with women and children. I'm no prude, but there was certainly no need for this in such mixed company. The finale of the day came when one of the mugs with maggots made a sudden enquiry that was filled with expletives, asking why there were so many boats in this particular area. I think the fact that a pub, cafe, chandlers and repair yard gave most others a clue to his query.

 

If he'd had a single brain cell it would have been lonely!

 

 

 

Think yourself lucky Mike that you have Hack Green between you and the Nantwich/Barbridge/Bunbury day boats!

 

There's no luck involved Dave, didn't you see the sign that I've erected at the locks saying 'The Shropshire Union Canal Ends Here'.

 

It works a treat!.

Edited April 5, 2012 by Doorman

[Matthew Dowson]

Yes, its easy to forget our humble origins when you're lucky enough to be at the helm of your own boat. There are a lot of grumblers on the cut, my wife says I'm one of them.

[Doorman]

There are a lot of grumblers on the cut, my wife says I'm one of them.

 

I honestly don't know why. Compared to our life as it was, all work and no play, our life on the cut is idylic.

 

We all suffer from the grumbles occasionally, even when life is so pleasing, it's human nature. But some of us are more human than others!

Edited April 5, 2012 by Doorman

[Cheshire cat]

I don't understand why that is bad news.

Please explain.

 

Doorman was lamenting the dayboats from Norbury being let loose with too many people on them and too many beers.

 

I was pointing out that Norbury have acquired another dayboat over the winter so there will be more opportunities to meet one in the narrows of Woodseaves cutting than ever before.

 

Nothing more than that. Perhaps, I've been lucky but my last two encounters with day boats both involved them pulling to one side and waving me through. They could easily have out run me but chose not to.