CRT Licence / Marina Mooring?

[Paul C]

 

 

As soon as anyone publishes that, it could be presented to us all - so that we can make those choices I hear we can make. If you visit the site WhatdotheyKnow, I think it's called, I haven't been there in a while, you'll find that the request for the information you seek was asked of CRT. It received a rejection.

 

The purpose of the FOI Act isn't to spoon-feed you though. The information, or a subset of it, is easily obtainable by phoning up marinas and asking them.

[Higgs]

 

The purpose of the FOI Act isn't to spoon-feed you though. The information, or a subset of it, is easily obtainable by phoning up marinas and asking them.

 

 

Yes, I've started making a list. There's one or two in the Bahamas, not very close to work.

 

I do think your arguments do not seem to be pertinent to the question of why we pay for a licence when one isn't necessary.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Higgs

[Paul C]

 

 

Yes, I've started making a list. There's one or two in the Bahamas, not very close to work.

 

I don't think its fair to ask others to help you if you refuse to help yourself.

[Higgs]

 

I don't think its fair to ask others to help you if you refuse to help yourself.

 

 

No, it's always best to hide the facts so that no one can know - you say. CRT hide the facts. Someone already had a go, asking the people that know. If nothing else, it's obstruction. I don't think I've asked any one here to do the research. I obviously do work to understand what's going on. There's very little from most contributors to this topic that even suggests it was ever remotely on their radar.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Higgs

[NilesMI]

I would suggest that estimating what the comparative revenues would be is a mug's game. Apart from obtaining the figure on boat numbers, you would have to make rather sweeping assumptions about what boat owners would chose to do, if the rules were changed. e.g. would it necessarily be the case that a boat which moored in a marina, but only used the canal occasionaly, would have to pay for a full, annual licence.

 

The question really is whether charging by use, rather than a flat rate* is a more equitable way of extracting the necessary readies from canal users? Even if it generates less total revenue and requires CRT to get more cash from elsewhere?

 

I can see arguments for and against, but the difficulty, always, is defining "use".

 

 

*OK, it's based on length of boat, but isn't that in itself, quite arbitrary?

[Higgs]

I would suggest that estimating what the comparative revenues would be is a mug's game. Apart from obtaining the figure on boat numbers, you would have to make rather sweeping assumptions about what boat owners would chose to do, if the rules were changed. e.g. would it necessarily be the case that a boat which moored in a marina, but only used the canal occasionaly, would have to pay for a full, annual licence.

 

The question really is whether charging by use, rather than a flat rate* is a more equitable way of extracting the necessary readies from canal users? Even if it generates less total revenue and requires CRT to get more cash from elsewhere?

 

I can see arguments for and against, but the difficulty, always, is defining "use".

 

 

*OK, it's based on length of boat, but isn't that in itself, quite arbitrary?

 

 

You could also look at other implications. Boaters would suddenly have a powerful lobby - as opposed to having non.

Edited December 30, 2016 by Higgs

[Paul C]

 

 

No, it's always best to hide the facts so that no one can know - you say. CRT hide the facts. Someone already had a go, asking the people that know. If nothing else, it's obstruction. I don't think I've asked any one here to do the research. I obviously do work to understand what's going on. There's very little from most contributors to this topic that even suggests it was ever remotely on their radar.

 

They're not hiding anything though - its your paranoia which interprets it as such. Its simply that they have not propped up someone's misuse of the FOI system.

 

What do you think the purpose of the FOI system is?

[Higgs]

 

They're not hiding anything though - its your paranoia which interprets it as such. Its simply that they have not propped up someone's misuse of the FOI system.

 

What do you think the purpose of the FOI system is?

 

 

Oh, it is hidden. If CRT will not help anyone to make choices that people here are expecting us to be able to make, you of course have the very information we crave. If you don't, I shall quietly go about the business I have already started, with no particular timetable or urgency, to make the very list of information and publish it. Freely.

[Paul C]

 

 

Oh, it is hidden. If CRT will not help anyone to make choices that people here are expecting us to be able to make, you of course have the very information we crave. If you don't, I shall quietly go about the business I have already started, with no particular timetable or urgency, to make the very list of information and publish it. Freely.

It really isn't hidden information.

[Stilllearning]

What is not under question is that at the moment CRT gets revenue from the NAA and from boats having licences all year round.

If in the future the NAA was abolished, it seems very likely that a large proportion of boats at present licenced and in those marinas would stop paying annually, and just get short term licenses as and when they went boating.

CRT would need to recoup that lost revenue, and I can see a couple of ways they might go about it: ending short term licenses and slightly increasing the cost at the same time, or alternatively allowing short term licences but really bumping up the fees.

Neither sounds very positive from a boater's point of view.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

No it wouldn't. You really think that all marina moorers would suddenly stop buying a licence?

I think that the vast majority would no longer buy a licence except for any short periods that they may go out. There are thousands of boats in marinas that hardly leave the marina from one year to the next, none of them would buy a licence if it wasn't in the T & C's of the marina (why would they?). In view of that I don't think that a licence fee for the remaining boaters in the order of £8,000 to £10,000 per year is that high, where else is CRT going to recover the lost income from? If you think the figure is 'overblown' perhaps you'd care to suggest a figure that you believe it may increase to, and we can then all ridicule it. It also becomes unsustainable since it would drive most people off the canals but then what is the alternative? Higgs seems to hope that the DEFRA grant will continue, so people with no connection to the canals at all (the general taxpayer) have to subsidise both your accomodation and, as you keep referring to it, my 'hobby'. Is that in some way fairer than people who at least have some connection to the system paying? Personally I don't think so.

 

As I've earlier stated to Higgs, the licence fee is a donation towards the upkeep of a national asset, if someone was making a profit out of it as a business (much as your marina owner is clearly doing) I would understand the complaint, but the money is needed to maintain the system otherwise it will regress into dereliction again. You clearly don't care since your interests are in saving your own money.

[MtB]

 

As I've earlier stated to Higgs, the licence fee is a donation towards the upkeep of a national asset, if someone was making a profit out of it as a business (much as your marina owner is clearly doing) I would understand the complaint, but the money is needed to maintain the system otherwise it will regress into dereliction again. You clearly don't care since your interests are in saving your own money.

 

An excellent summary.

[lulu fish]

 

 

As I've earlier stated to Higgs, the licence fee is a donation towards the upkeep of a national asset, if someone was making a profit out of it as a business (much as your marina owner is clearly doing) I would understand the complaint, but the money is needed to maintain the system otherwise it will regress into dereliction again. You clearly don't care since your interests are in saving your own money.

Donations are usually voluntary. An obligatory fee to maintain a system that I don't use is in no way a donation.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

 

 

When will you stop using this chicken and egg scenario. Should we carry on with it until we reach the big bang.

 

It makes no difference where a boat is. The arguments I'm pursuing do not rely on the need to have a boat. You should know that, by now.

 

You make the paying of taxes sound like some kind of altruistic pursuit, to pay for schools, etc - there's nothing altruistic about it. You're over-egging it a bit. It's commonly known as a guilt trip. If you like, I could continue with the tax theme to its ridiculous end and suggest that the richest pay more and the poorest pay nothing. Would you apply that to how we fund the canal?

There is no 'chicken and egg' scenario, why do you think that the canals fell into dereliction in the first place? Because the companies owning them stopped spending money on upkeep as they were no longer commercially viable. If funding is removed on the scale that you seem to propose, why do you believe that the same will not happen again? Where will the money for upkeep come from?

 

You have a very confused 'argument' concerning taxation, given the numbers who spend a considerable amount of time finding ways not to pay tax, those who actually do are exhibiting an altruistic trait. Your assertion that to continue with the tax theme to its 'ridiculous' conclusion would involve the rich paying more and the poorest paying nothing is way off the mark, what do you think happens with the poorest? If you aren't earning enough money to live on, what is the purpose of taxing them to take even more money off them? You will find that the poorest, after allowance made for working tax credits is taken into consideration, effectively don't pay tax on their income, they cannot avoid paying it on their spending however.

[Paul C]

Donations are usually voluntary. An obligatory fee to maintain a system that I don't use is in no way a donation.

 

But you're not forced to remain in the NAA marina - you could moor in one without the NAA contract, or have the boat lifted out (after all you're not going to be using it on the canals....)

 

Do you not see, or not accept that there's choices?

[NilesMI]

What is not under question is that at the moment CRT gets revenue from the NAA and from boats having licences all year round.

If in the future the NAA was abolished, it seems very likely that a large proportion of boats at present licenced and in those marinas would stop paying annually, and just get short term licenses as and when they went boating.

 

That would be one likely consequence.

 

But what about those who have online moorings? If those boats are still required to have an annual licence, even while at their moorings, it would tilt the economics in favour of marinas. It may encourage new marina moorings to be created or the cost of current marina moorings to increase relative to online moorings, which might become cheaper.

 

And changes to licence fees would affect those who have no home mooring. Maybe they too, would change their boating habits by spending time in a marina, rather than purchasing an annual licence?

 

Maybe CRT can second guess what might happen and re-jig such that they continue to receive the same combined income from moorings and licences. Some boaters would win, some would lose, some new boaters would be encouraged to buy-in, some existing boaters would be priced out and sell their boats. The overall change would be to make the amount a boater pays relate somewhat more closely to the amount they "use" the canals

 

It is not even necessarily the case that following a change to the NAA, licence and mooring fees could be re-jigged such that CRT could expect to receive their current combined income. e.g. if continually increasing licence fees chases more and more boaters into marinas.

 

That's why I suggest that predicting what would happen is a mug's game. You would expect things to settle down, but what that would mean for the number of boats using the system, where they would choose to moor, how much they would each have to pay for mooring and "using the canals" and what CRT's finances would look like is highly unpredictable.

[lulu fish]

 

But you're not forced to remain in the NAA marina - you could moor in one without the NAA contract, or have the boat lifted out (after all you're not going to be using it on the canals....)

 

Do you not see, or not accept that there's choices?

Of course there are choices, everything in life is a choice. Should we refrain from pointing out things we perceive as unfair just because there is the option to live somewhere else? If the government were to introduce a charge you saw as unfair, would you happily pay it without complaint because the choice of moving abroad is available?

[Paul C]

Of course there are choices, everything in life is a choice. Should we refrain from pointing out things we perceive as unfair just because there is the option to live somewhere else? If the government were to introduce a charge you saw as unfair, would you happily pay it without complaint because the choice of moving abroad is available?

It's the "I want to moor in a marina in Nantwich but not Nantwich marina" scenario.

[Alan de Enfield]

It's the "I want to moor in a marina in Nantwich but not Nantwich marina" scenario.

 

Or : "I want to live in London but I'm not prepared to pay the costs to do so."

[MtB]

Of course there are choices, everything in life is a choice. Should we refrain from pointing out things we perceive as unfair just because there is the option to live somewhere else? If the government were to introduce a charge you saw as unfair, would you happily pay it without complaint because the choice of moving abroad is available?

 

 

Yes I'd pay it without complaint or move abroad, as a few lone voices complaining is pointless, futile and a waste of effort.

 

Just like Higgs' and you complaining about the NAA. The NAA is widely supported by the vast majority of boaters who understand why it is there, I suspect.

[lulu fish]

 

 

Yes I'd pay it without complaint or move abroad,

 

Fortunately most people are not like you.

[MtB]

Fortunately most people are not like you.

 

And even more fortunately, most people are not like you.

[NilesMI]

Should we refrain from pointing out things we perceive as unfair just because there is the option to live somewhere else?

 

I don't object to you making the argument that the NAA is unfair on boaters who don't want to actually use the canals, yet choose to moor in an NAA connected marina. I just happen to disagree.

 

What I do object to is your suggestion that those who disagree with you are only doing so because they want you and people like you to "subsidise" their boating.

[___]

I think that the vast majority would no longer buy a licence except for any short periods that they may go out. There are thousands of boats in marinas that hardly leave the marina from one year to the next, none of them would buy a licence if it wasn't in the T & C's of the marina (why would they?). In view of that I don't think that a licence fee for the remaining boaters in the order of £8,000 to £10,000 per year is that high, where else is CRT going to recover the lost income from? If you think the figure is 'overblown' perhaps you'd care to suggest a figure that you believe it may increase to, and we can then all ridicule it. It also becomes unsustainable since it would drive most people off the canals but then what is the alternative? Higgs seems to hope that the DEFRA grant will continue, so people with no connection to the canals at all (the general taxpayer) have to subsidise both your accomodation and, as you keep referring to it, my 'hobby'. Is that in some way fairer than people who at least have some connection to the system paying? Personally I don't think so.

 

As I've earlier stated to Higgs, the licence fee is a donation towards the upkeep of a national asset, if someone was making a profit out of it as a business (much as your marina owner is clearly doing) I would understand the complaint, but the money is needed to maintain the system otherwise it will regress into dereliction again. You clearly don't care since your interests are in saving your own money.

Buying a licence for when it is needed isn't how the system works. There isn't a pay as you go scenario; that ended with the replacement of tolls with the licensing system.

 

So if a boater in a marina that genuinely never leaves the marina doesn't want to buy a licence there seems little reason to me why they should; any more than a boater on any other non-CRT navigation should be forced to buy a CRT licence.

 

However in making that choice it would be the case that they couldn't just take a quick trip when the mood took them and if they did the option is to buy an annual licence. Like it or not that's how it works. I am not so sure that lots of marina moorers would be so willing to lose the ability to cruise at all.

 

The NAA is a totally different issue. That's a legitimate contract between the marina and CRT. The boaters concern should only be whether or not they want to pay the mooring charges at the marina concerned or find an alternative.

 

JP

[lulu fish]

 

 

What I do object to is your suggestion that those who disagree with you are only doing so because they want you and people like you to "subsidise" their boating.

 

Every objection seems to boil down this though. The people disagreeing with me don't want their licence fees to increase, so they want people like me to pay for something we don't use. They want the upkeep of the canals to be part funded by non-users to keep their licence fees low. This is the very definition of subsidisation.

Edited December 30, 2016 by lulu fish