Volunteer spreading the love - Gifford Park Mooring - merged topics

LEO · July 27, 2015

Yes, let's encourage people to throw blocks in the canal shall we? How stupid.

In jumps the opportunist...

Yes,it's stupid but it matches the stupidity and ignorance of some boaters.

jenlyn · July 27, 2015

Yes,it's stupid but it matches the stupidity and ignorance of some boaters.

I can see that.

bigcol · July 27, 2015

Posted Yesterday, 10:21 PM

Presumably this is our man?

Quote

I live in a house with the towpath 40 feet from my lounge window. My neighbour and I have had the quality of our lives

completely destroyed by the mooring of 'live aboard' boats outside of our house.during the last 3/4years. In 2013, 281 days out of

365 we had boats moored, some double parked. Smoking chimneys (We live in a smoke free zone !!) generators on the towpath,

washing lines, barking dogs, and lots of foul language. many days we cannot use our garden. We have had meetings with the

canal trust manager - Mr Whyatt who has refused to do anything to restrict the mooring. we have requested, for about 100yds,

24/48 hr mooring so that holiday boats are not affected, but stops the 'live aboards'. There are hundreds of yards of mooring that

does not affect anybody in Giffard Park. Surely this is not too much to ask, just 100yds restricted. Please, please help, we pay

£XXXX/ year house tax and the value of our houses has been reduced due to the constant mooring of these boats and their

disregard to the house holders. I have invited Mr Whyatt to visit me to see for himself, but he has never bothered to accept my

invite.

4/30/2014 3:54 PM

Agree. A good find Alan. Maybe Mr Whyatt is the person to ask for this morning, also re the CRT volunteer experience.

Thing is we reversed further along from this guys place yesterday, what with him and the CRT voulenteer, wife is upset about it all.

And last night 11.30 pm there's was a boat fire,the 2 boats along I reversed passed one caught fire,! reported on the local radio this morning,

our next door neighbor saw it, seeing the flames ,having to move close to us to get away

2 appliances and Rescue inflatable attended 11.30 pm We never saw or heard anything

No one hurt thankfully

And on top of all that. It's rained all day yesterday lol

nicknorman · July 27, 2015

Yup blame the cc'ers and liveaboards. Now a boat that hire boater that arrived at 7pm last night moored in front of me turned his engine on at 8.30pm was still running at 10:30 pm last night when I went and asked him if he could turn it off. The reply I got was "we have 2 small children on board and they are cold so we need to run the engine to work the heating" The engine was running again at 6am today. Now me as a CCer have been moored here for 8 days and not run my engine once and nor has Stan. Those bloody cc'ers not running there engines how dare they

I did say my points were generalisations, and with generalisations one can always find exceptions, and probably plenty of them. Yes there is a particular hire fleet that we often encounter on our local "patch" that seemed to be briefed to run their engines endlessly, but that is abnormal.

My point really is that it is pointless to stick one's head in the sand and say "why buy a house next to a canal ..." etc. It is as one-sided and selfish as the householder in question is being. An impartial observer would look upon the situation and well be able to see the householders' point - that impartial observer perhaps being CRT or council officialdom, MPs etc.

So it is unhelpful to take the line that boaters should be able to do what they like with regards to noise and smoke nuisance, and stuff the householders. It is all about compromise and restricting the mooring time would reduce the number of CCers / liveaboards mooring there for long periods and thus reduce, but not as you correctly point out eliminate, the nuisance.

kris88 · July 27, 2015

It does seem like cc'ers and livaboard boaters are an endangered species. They get blamed and attacked from every side.

Regards kris

nicknorman · July 27, 2015

It does seem like cc'ers and livaboard boaters are an endangered species. They get blamed and attacked from every side.

Regards kris

Not at all, but to deny there are fundamental differences between the usage and behaviour of CCers and liveaboard boaters vs holiday boaters, is ludicrous.

There are nice, considerate folk who are liveaboard /CCers / holiday boaters, and there are obnoxious, selfish ones in all those categories too. The trouble is that one gets more exposure to an obnoxious selfish boater who is permanently on the cut vs one who only visits a couple of weeks a year!

Edited July 27, 2015 by nicknorman

kris88 · July 27, 2015

Not at all, but to deny there are fundamental differences between the usage and behaviour of CCers and liveaboard boaters vs holiday boaters, is ludicrous.

Feeling guilty? that post seems a little defensive.

nicknorman · July 27, 2015

Feeling guilty? that post seems a little defensive.

Not feeling at all guilty. You were implying that one shouldn't discriminate between CCers / liveaboards and leisure boaters, and I am pointing out that since there are fundamental differences, discrimination is appropriate. In the same way that the law discriminates between boaters with a home mooring and those without. "Discriminate" in its true sense, not its trendy PC sense.

kris88 · July 27, 2015

After 5 pages of 'Tosh' this is a fair comment from the 'other side'. really it is sad when the

I can see it from both sides - if I were the home owner perhaps a few large concrete blocks sunk at the dead of night would prevent easy mooring at that point and from what I have read on this posting, we boaters seem to have stopped short in making a clay doll of the homeowner and sticking pins in it as a solution.

ATB

L

What a blindingly good idea lets encourage all local resident vigilante groups to drop concrete blocks in the canal. Between that and CRT's time limited moorings the canal will be a great place to be.

Regards kris

alan_fincher · July 27, 2015

The assumption here from some recent posts is that the householder's comment I have cut and pasted is an accurate statement of how things are.

I regularly boat past Giffard Park, and would not have thought this particular location is one that is one of the most "colonised" in the area. It if far from always full with residential boats, and I would say breasting up is rare, (if only because there are regularly wide beams there).

If the householder does his research, "smokeless fuel" regulation do not apply to canal boats anyway, but I would hazard a guess that most burning stoves there will be using a smokeless fuel anyway - very little house coal is now sold on the canals, I think.

CRT have tried to accommodate residents by the introduction of a voluntary "Quiet Zone" here, although I have not been there recently enough to know if the signs are yet in place.

It is not somewhere that should have 24 or 48 hour moorings thrust upon it, because these are not necessary to relieve congestion, and doing it as an oblique way of solving another perceived problem could open the floodgates for doing it all over the place.

Anybody who boats though Milton Keynes will realise there is nothing exceptional about Giffard Park - there are thousands of metres of towpath with housing built next to potential mooring sites - are we going to make it all short stay, to keep live-aboard boats away? Anyway a Wyvern or Alvechurch hire boat, complete with stag party, supermarket beer, and disposable barbecue can cause just as much annoyance as someone who lives on a boat permanently.

kris88 · July 27, 2015

Nick I wasn't implying anything. I was pointing out that cc'ers and livaboard boaters seem to get the blame for all ills on the network from all sides.

The question about if you where feeling guilty is because I never mentioned your name once in the post. But you obviously felt I was talking about you.

Regards kris

alan_fincher · July 27, 2015

It is all about compromise and restricting the mooring time would reduce the number of CCers / liveaboards mooring there for long periods and thus reduce, but not as you correctly point out eliminate, the nuisance.

So would you make large expanses of Miton Keynes where houses back on to the canal short stay moorings just to stop live-aboards, or onlydo it for the residents who kick up the most fuss.

And why stop at Milton Keynes? Much of the Southern GU has close by housing, and often good towpath popular for moorings close by?

Should CRT make it all short stay?

If we do end up with miles of 24 hour and 48 hour moorings, do CRT then spend an even higher percentage of their strapped funds by employing moe enforcement staff to harrass boaters who overstay? At the moment they can't adequately enforce 14 day stay times - how would they manage miles of short stay?

jenlyn · July 27, 2015

Nick I wasn't implying anything. I was pointing out that cc'ers and livaboard boaters seem to get the blame for all ills on the network from all sides.

The question about if you where feeling guilty is because I never mentioned your name once in the post. But you obviously felt I was talking about you.

Regards kris

Don't feed the troll is in order methinks.

nicknorman · July 27, 2015

Anyway a Wyvern or Alvechurch hire boat, complete with stag party, supermarket beer, and disposable barbecue can cause just as much annoyance as someone who lives on a boat permanently.

It can at any particular moment in time, but the difference is that the stag party boat will disappear the next day so that particular nuisance has a known duration. Whereas a liveaboard with a ludicrously noisy open frame generator and knackered batteries and burning wet wood pitching up, is quite likely to stay for 14 days (in the eyes of the householder). As I said in answer to john, these are generalisations but in a non - perfect world, generalisations are all we have to go on.

Alan the trouble is that if we (you) persist in the line that the householder should just put up with it, in the end boaters will lose that battle and that is in no-ones best interests.

jenlyn · July 27, 2015

So would you make large expanses of Miton Keynes where houses back on to the canal short stay moorings just to stop live-aboards, or onlydo it for the residents who kick up the most fuss.

And why stop at Milton Keynes? Much of the Southern GU has close by housing, and often good towpath popular for moorings close by?

Should CRT make it all short stay?

If we do end up with miles of 24 hour and 48 hour moorings, do CRT then spend an even higher percentage of their strapped funds by employing moe enforcement staff to harrass boaters who overstay? At the moment they can't adequately enforce 14 day stay times - how would they manage miles of short stay?

Could Nick get his boat down that far? (Without one of your boats being in attendance).

nicknorman · July 27, 2015

Nick I wasn't implying anything. I was pointing out that cc'ers and livaboard boaters seem to get the blame for all ills on the network from all sides.

The question about if you where feeling guilty is because I never mentioned your name once in the post. But you obviously felt I was talking about you.

Regards kris

Oh I see, but coming directly after my post it seemed to be aimed at me even though you didn't quote me. I sometimes aim a post at the previous poster without quoting just to save space and make it easier to read.

kris88 · July 27, 2015

Don't feed the troll is in order methinks.

Yes your right, I'll go and do something less boring instead.

Regards kris

nicknorman · July 27, 2015

So would you make large expanses of Miton Keynes where houses back on to the canal short stay moorings just to stop live-aboards, or onlydo it for the residents who kick up the most fuss.

And why stop at Milton Keynes? Much of the Southern GU has close by housing, and often good towpath popular for moorings close by?

Should CRT make it all short stay?

If we do end up with miles of 24 hour and 48 hour moorings, do CRT then spend an even higher percentage of their strapped funds by employing moe enforcement staff to harrass boaters who overstay? At the moment they can't adequately enforce 14 day stay times - how would they manage miles of short stay?

See my point about head in sand. IMO doing nothing and ridiculing the complaints of local residents is a strategy that will inevitably fail in time, to the detriment of all boaters. There has to be some sort of compromise.

CRT doesnt have the power to enforce smoke and noise control (which would certainly be my preferred solution) but they do have the power to limit mooring duration.

Edited July 27, 2015 by nicknorman

bigcol · July 27, 2015