NAA Split from: UPDATE ON LICENSING PROCESS FOR BOATS WITHOUT HOME MOORINGS

[Wanderer Vagabond]

While we may poke fun at the idea of a boater buying a boat then never using it for boating, I feel its a little unfair because its perfectly valid that someone may wish to use the boat for (say) 6 months of the year April-September, but will not use it in the colder months of the year. A 6 month licence is a few hundred pounds less than a 12 months one. I personally wouldn't go for it (I like boating Oct-Mar) but I can see others would.

It's not really a case of poking fun at anyone, it is the zero sum side of it that I don't find at all attractive. If those who choose to put their boat in a marina and leave it there without using the canal system at all were exempt from paying for a licence then everyone else would have to pay more for theirs, making the canals a rich persons hobby. It isn't as though they didn't know that this was the case when they bought their boat and it was suddenly sprung upon them. To lose the income of the thousands of boats kept in marinas would effectively result in the closure of the canal system since the CRT business would be unsustainable without full funding from Government and that isn't going to happen any time soon (and to be honest , even as a boater, I wouldn't agree that it would be good use of scarce resources).

 

Despite the case that Higgs is trying to make the NAA charge is put on the owner of the marina not the boats in the marina, it is his choice to pass it onto his moorers. The charge is for him/her to have the amenity of being connected to the canal system, they have total freedom to build themselves a landlocked marina without access to anything if they wish, for which there would be no licence fee payable and no NAA to pay, but for some reason they choose not to, I wonder why ?

 

All I can say is that I wish Higgs utter failure in his proposals.

[Higgs]

It's not really a case of poking fun at anyone, it is the zero sum side of it that I don't find at all attractive. If those who choose to put their boat in a marina and leave it there without using the canal system at all were exempt from paying for a licence then everyone else would have to pay more for theirs, making the canals a rich persons hobby. It isn't as though they didn't know that this was the case when they bought their boat and it was suddenly sprung upon them. To lose the income of the thousands of boats kept in marinas would effectively result in the closure of the canal system since the CRT business would be unsustainable without full funding from Government and that isn't going to happen any time soon (and to be honest , even as a boater, I wouldn't agree that it would be good use of scarce resources).

 

Despite the case that Higgs is trying to make the NAA charge is put on the owner of the marina not the boats in the marina, it is his choice to pass it onto his moorers. The charge is for him/her to have the amenity of being connected to the canal system, they have total freedom to build themselves a landlocked marina without access to anything if they wish, for which there would be no licence fee payable and no NAA to pay, but for some reason they choose not to, I wonder why ?

 

All I can say is that I wish Higgs utter failure in his proposals.

 

 

Quite funny, really.

[Loafer]

Try Falmouth. No license required. Boats don't have to move. You can live there. £7 a night in winter, electricity at cost. Not seen a narrowboat there though, although you don't need one - you can have something much wider!

[Graham Davis]

Quite funny, really.

Instead of making a sarcastic retort, why not come back with a sensible, full and reasoned reply?

[cuthound]

Quite funny, really.

But absolutely true.

[Higgs]

Instead of making a sarcastic retort, why not come back with a sensible, full and reasoned reply?

 

If I see something sensible, I will reciprocate accordingly.

[Paul C]

Yeah but the point is, one is subsidising the other. The one who doesn't use it is overpaying to allow the one who uses it a lot to underpay. A cost-neutral realignment would remove this unfairness on the one who doesn't use it and the one who uses it a lot, would pay (more).

 

The counterpoint is that CRT have decided that instead of charging on a "per use" basis, they have a flat fee for the year, no matter how much or little (or none even...) of the network is used. This makes boating, relatively, good value for money vs having to buy a licence then not boating. For example, I think there was one year we did the Anderton lift about 4 times. I worked out the restoration cost vs the numbers of boats that used it and figured,if it were charged for on a direct-costs basis each passage would cost about £2000.

[Jerra]

The counterpoint is that CRT have decided that instead of charging on a "per use" basis,

When you say a per use basis are you thinking in terms of literally I want to cruise for a day so I can pay a fee or a number of different short term options.

 

I would think the first one would be expensive to administer. There is also the problem of those who don't buy a licence and nip out to their favourite pub 4 or 5 times in the summer season.

 

If a per use basis could be cost effective and it could catch those who think (and there will be some) yipee my chances of being caught at a weekend are fairly low I will risk it (and therefore escape paying) I would be happy with that.

[adam1uk]

When you say a per use basis are you thinking in terms of literally I want to cruise for a day so I can pay a fee or a number of different short term options.

 

I would think the first one would be expensive to administer. There is also the problem of those who don't buy a licence and nip out to their favourite pub 4 or 5 times in the summer season.

 

If a per use basis could be cost effective and it could catch those who think (and there will be some) yipee my chances of being caught at a weekend are fairly low I will risk it (and therefore escape paying) I would be happy with that.

 

 

I'd have thought a per use basis would be pretty catastrophic for CRT finances. People who don't boat many days will be paying less -- but there's no guarantee that people who boat a lot will continue to boat enough to make up the difference. Many will decide to spend no more than the cost of the old licence. Hence a big drop in income. That could lead to an increase in the daily rate to attempt to make up the difference -- which would likely lead to a further reduction in usage.

 

Many things in life are paid for by everyone but used by just a few. Those of us who have no children are paying into the state education system; if parents had to pay for that as their children used it, most of them wouldn't be able to afford it.

 

Sometimes it just makes sense for everyone to pay a bit, so that no-one pays a fortune. It may not be strictly fair, but it's good for society.

[Loafer]

 

 

I'd have thought a per use basis would be pretty catastrophic for CRT finances. People who don't boat many days will be paying less -- but there's no guarantee that people who boat a lot will continue to boat enough to make up the difference. Many will decide to spend no more than the cost of the old licence. Hence a big drop in income. That could lead to an increase in the daily rate to attempt to make up the difference -- which would likely lead to a further reduction in usage.

 

Many things in life are paid for by everyone but used by just a few. Those of us who have no children are paying into the state education system; if parents had to pay for that as their children used it, most of them wouldn't be able to afford it.

 

Sometimes it just makes sense for everyone to pay a bit, so that no-one pays a fortune. It may not be strictly fair, but it's good for society.

 

I have no children. Why don't I get an allowance for helping save resources?

[Jerra]

 

 

I'd have thought a per use basis would be pretty catastrophic for CRT finances.

 

Basically I would have to agree but if there were enough people who were desperate for the situation to change a system which guaranteed nobody used the canal without paying and cost no more and preferably less than the current system would be OK with me.

 

Personally doubt 1. Enough people are upset by the situation to merit change and 2. That such a system could be sorted out cost effectively.

[Wanderer Vagabond]

Yeah but the point is, one is subsidising the other. The one who doesn't use it is overpaying to allow the one who uses it a lot to underpay. A cost-neutral realignment would remove this unfairness on the one who doesn't use it and the one who uses it a lot, would pay (more).

 

The counterpoint is that CRT have decided that instead of charging on a "per use" basis, they have a flat fee for the year, no matter how much or little (or none even...) of the network is used. This makes boating, relatively, good value for money vs having to buy a licence then not boating. For example, I think there was one year we did the Anderton lift about 4 times. I worked out the restoration cost vs the numbers of boats that used it and figured,if it were charged for on a direct-costs basis each passage would cost about £2000.

The cross subsidy is basically essential to maintain a canal system. The alternative has been tried before, it was called tolls. If we wish to go back to that system then there are a number of canals that would be consigned to history, the Chesterfield, the Ashby,most of the Northern BCN, (Wyrley & Essington, Daw End Branch, Cannock Branch, Rushall) Caldon Canal, Peak Forest Canal and probably the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation, none of these generate enough traffic to pay their way if they were financed purely on a 'per use' basis. We all pay for their upkeep because if the cost was borne only by those using them they become unviable.

 

This 'unfairness' is actually the person's own choice, they choose not to use the system. It could be described as the same 'unfairness' when I used to have a car of my own. Each year I would only travel about 4000 to 6000 miles in it and yet I paid the same road tax as a neighbour who travelled 60,000 to 80,000 miles in his. On a per use basis he 'should' have paid a lot more than me but I accepted the fact that keep the cost of motoring affordable for both of us the system we have meant we both paid exactly the same.

 

The NAA is what the marina owner pays to attract people to use his marina, as I stated earlier there is no restriction on him building his marina in the middle of nowhere unconnected to any part of the system and then his customers wouldn't have to pay anything at all to CRT. If there was any demand for this I'm sure it would be built, but there doesn't seem to be any demand (except for the chap on the South Oxford ).

[Mike Todd]

Most of the boats in the marina I moor at never move

But the real questiuon is whether that was by prior intent or is it just how things have panned out.

[Higgs]

The cross subsidy is basically essential to maintain a canal system. The alternative has been tried before, it was called tolls. If we wish to go back to that system then there are a number of canals that would be consigned to history, the Chesterfield, the Ashby,most of the Northern BCN, (Wyrley & Essington, Daw End Branch, Cannock Branch, Rushall) Caldon Canal, Peak Forest Canal and probably the Sheffield and South Yorkshire Navigation, none of these generate enough traffic to pay their way if they were financed purely on a 'per use' basis. We all pay for their upkeep because if the cost was borne only by those using them they become unviable.

 

This 'unfairness' is actually the person's own choice, they choose not to use the system. It could be described as the same 'unfairness' when I used to have a car of my own. Each year I would only travel about 4000 to 6000 miles in it and yet I paid the same road tax as a neighbour who travelled 60,000 to 80,000 miles in his. On a per use basis he 'should' have paid a lot more than me but I accepted the fact that keep the cost of motoring affordable for both of us the system we have meant we both paid exactly the same.

 

The NAA is what the marina owner pays to attract people to use his marina, as I stated earlier there is no restriction on him building his marina in the middle of nowhere unconnected to any part of the system and then his customers wouldn't have to pay anything at all to CRT. If there was any demand for this I'm sure it would be built, but there doesn't seem to be any demand (except for the chap on the South Oxford ).

 

 

I love these vehicle analogies. Maybe you could wonder how to incorporate the SORN system into the canal. Or, maybe you could argue against its use by vehicle owners by using the canal analogy.

 

Example - Your letter to Car World Discussion Forum

 

Why should car owners be allowed to moor their' cars on a private space and get away without paying for Vehicle Excise Duty, not fair ! - the roads will go to rack and ruin. Those of us that have to use the road will have to pay more, because they only pay when they want to use the road. Many things in life are paid for by everyone but used by just a few. Marina moorers have to pay, even when they're on private property. That's what I want for cars. Take no prisoners. They choose to have a car. They're not real drivers. Roundabouts don't pay for themselves. Scrap SORN. Please become a FRIEND. Help your road survive. Those bloody SORN people don't care, selfish w*nkers. Sob.

[Mike Todd]

 

 

I'd have thought a per use basis would be pretty catastrophic for CRT finances. People who don't boat many days will be paying less -- but there's no guarantee that people who boat a lot will continue to boat enough to make up the difference. Many will decide to spend no more than the cost of the old licence. Hence a big drop in income. That could lead to an increase in the daily rate to attempt to make up the difference -- which would likely lead to a further reduction in usage.

 

Many things in life are paid for by everyone but used by just a few. Those of us who have no children are paying into the state education system; if parents had to pay for that as their children used it, most of them wouldn't be able to afford it.

 

Sometimes it just makes sense for everyone to pay a bit, so that no-one pays a fortune. It may not be strictly fair, but it's good for society.

It would have to be a zero-sum basis so the per-use charge would probably have to become astronomical. No thanks!

[Wanderer Vagabond]

 

 

I love these vehicle analogies. Maybe you could wonder how to incorporate the SORN system into the canal. Or, maybe you could argue against its use by vehicle owners by using the canal analogy.

 

Example - Your letter to Car World Discussion Forum

 

Why should car owners be allowed to moor their' cars on a private space and get away without paying for Vehicle Excise Duty, not fair ! - the roads will go to rack and ruin. Those of us that have to use the road will have to pay more, because they only pay when they want to use the road. Many things in life are paid for by everyone but used by just a few. Marina moorers have to pay, even when they're on private property. That's what I want for cars. Take no prisoners. They choose to have a car. They're not real drivers. Roundabouts don't pay for themselves. Scrap SORN. Please become a FRIEND. Help your road survive. Those bloody SORN people don't care, selfish w*nkers. Sob.

The difference being that CRT has supplied the water in your marina that your boat is floating on, why should they give this service for free to the marina owner. This is where your whole 'argument' falls down, the NAA charge is not on you, it is on the owner of the marina, he chooses to pass it on to you as part of his business plan. If he does so (which all/most of them do) you are subsidising the marina owners costs. Would people be attracted to mooring in his/her marina if it were not attached to the rest of the system? Get a marina owner to open a land-locked marina and see if it works, I don't think that it will somehow but if you can get the support give it a go. If however the marina needs to be attached to the canal system then the marina owner should pay for it, period.

[David Mack]

 

I love these vehicle analogies. Maybe you could wonder how to incorporate the SORN system into the canal. Or, maybe you could argue against its use by vehicle owners by using the canal analogy.

 

 

SORN your car - take it off the road. No need to licence or insure it, but you may have to pay the landowner a storage charge (unless its on your own land).

 

SORN your boat - take it out of the water. No need to licence or insure it, but you may have to pay the landowner a storage charge (unless its on your own land).

 

Its not hard!

Edited March 16, 2016 by David Mack

[Tam & Di]

 

 

SORN your boat - take it out of the water. No need to licence or insure it, but you may have to pay the landowner a storage charge (unless its on your own land).

 

Its not hard!

 

Although I'm not particularly in favour of Higgs' argument he is correct that once in a marina you are not floating in water owned by C&RT, and a SORN analogy does not work. It was also said above that the water in marinas belongs (or belonged) to C&RT, but even that is not always true. Some marinas are nett providers of water to the system - i.e. they filled up of their own account rather than from the adjoining canal.

 

Tam

[Alan de Enfield]

 

Although I'm not particularly in favour of Higgs' argument he is correct that once in a marina you are not floating in water owned by C&RT, and a SORN analogy does not work. It was also said above that the water in marinas belongs (or belonged) to C&RT, but even that is not always true. Some marinas are nett providers of water to the system - i.e. they filled up of their own account rather than from the adjoining canal.

 

Tam

 

If I understand correctly - C&RT do not own the water ( no one owns water) they are a navigation authority purely having responsibility for getting the water from A to B, and for the registration and licensing of boats 'floating' on the water for which they have responsibility (NOT ownership)

[Paul C]

CRT aren't bothered about the water flowing in and out of a marina. They're more worried about the boats going out onto the canal with no licence. Getting the NAA agreement with a clause that all marina boats to be licenced was a clever move to muchly reduce the burden on what would otherwise be a very difficult and revenue-losing enforcement issue.

[Tam & Di]

CRT aren't bothered about the water flowing in and out of a marina.

 

Although I agree entirely with the main body of your post, C&RT are very much interested in "water", leasing abstraction rights to farmers and industries, assuring that marinas do not lose it by leakage, and last but (hopefully) not least having sufficient for boats to float about in. It is the sine qua non of their existence, but of course at the other end of the stick they don't want too much of it either.

 

Tam

Edited March 16, 2016 by Tam & Di

[Wanderer Vagabond]

 

 

I love these vehicle analogies. Maybe you could wonder how to incorporate the SORN system into the canal. Or, maybe you could argue against its use by vehicle owners by using the canal analogy.

 

Example - Your letter to Car World Discussion Forum

 

Why should car owners be allowed to moor their' cars on a private space and get away without paying for Vehicle Excise Duty, not fair ! - the roads will go to rack and ruin. Those of us that have to use the road will have to pay more, because they only pay when they want to use the road. Many things in life are paid for by everyone but used by just a few. Marina moorers have to pay, even when they're on private property. That's what I want for cars. Take no prisoners. They choose to have a car. They're not real drivers. Roundabouts don't pay for themselves. Scrap SORN. Please become a FRIEND. Help your road survive. Those bloody SORN people don't care, selfish w*nkers. Sob.

As someone else has pointed out you are not SORN'ing your boat by putting it in a marina, you can SORN your boat by asking the marina to take it out of the water and put it on hard standing so no fees payable to CRT. The water that your boat is floating on in the marina is not owned by CRT but it has been supplied by them (usually) so why should that be done for free?

 

If you must continue with the vehicle analogy, when I was running a car I had a garage in which I parked it when not in use (bit radical I know, most people's garages are full of rubbish). Now since I only covered about 4000 to 6000 miles per year, let us say that at 25mph it would only take me about 200 hours to cover that distance. If you then multiply that by 10 to cover the times that the car was on the road outside other people's property so let us say that my car was on the road for about 2000 hours per year. There are 8760 hours in a year so my car was actually using the highway for about 22.8% of the time, should I have been given a vehicle duty rebate of 77% of the tax? Obviously that would be ridiculous, much the same as your idea for non-payment of boat licence by marina based craft.

 

Add to that if CRT lost the income of marina based craft you can forget about having a canal system. The government of the day has let the system virtually shut down once before prior to Rolt and Aickman's efforts and they would do so again. unlike the road system which is essential infrastructure, the canals are not so the government would just repeal the 1995 Waterways Act and shut them down if the people using them didn't want to pay for the privilege.

[Mike Todd]

 

Although I'm not particularly in favour of Higgs' argument he is correct that once in a marina you are not floating in water owned by C&RT, and a SORN analogy does not work. It was also said above that the water in marinas belongs (or belonged) to C&RT, but even that is not always true. Some marinas are nett providers of water to the system - i.e. they filled up of their own account rather than from the adjoining canal.

 

Tam

Nigel M will no doubt correct me but I thought that riparian rights etc etc are not to do with the water but the land underneath. Ownership of water is much more complicated (see the charges which CaRT make to those who want either to take water out of a canal or even to put it in). In any event, I have seen no suggestion that CaRT claim that they own anything in relation to the marina - just the opposite as they require things of the marina owner that they do not do themselves. What they are able to do is to market a service (ie access - the clue is in the name) at a price they set according to market conditions. And a good thing that they as without out it our licences would be higher and/or the maintenance poorer. The provision of the water to fill the marina may or may not be part of the service that relates to a specific business - my guess would be that few are neutral (ie no water ever goes either in or out) so a charge can be levied on that alone, which ever way it flows! Although, as Paul C says, the NAA condition (rather than the agreement as a whole) to enforce licences is a different matter.

[NigelMoore]

Nigel M will no doubt correct me but I thought that riparian rights etc etc are not to do with the water but the land underneath.

 

Riparian rights are ALL about the water, nothing to do with the land beneath the water.

 

Riparian owners alongside natural, non-tidal watercourses possess the incident ownership of the bed – but that is simply part and parcel of the bank ownership, it is not a ‘right’.

 

Riparian owners alongside most natural, tidal watercourses do not own the riverbed as an incident of the bank ownership; the general [rebuttable] presumption is that ownership of the bed vests in the crown.

 

The rights attendant upon the riparian ownership are, however, the same – they can be summarised as a right to the use of the water flowing alongside the bank – and whoever owns the bed has exclusive rights to that land under the water, which do not, however, comprise ANY common law rights to the use of the water above it.

 

In terms of mooring boats therefore, the right belongs to the riparian owner not the bed owner, with this caveat: there is no right to interfere with the bed in third party ownership, as e.g. laying anchors or more permanent mooring structures thereupon [excepting only, in public navigable rivers, the right to temporary anchorage in the course of navigation].

 

On artificial watercourses such as canals, riparian rights are only such as were conferred under the Statute empowering their construction; the ownership of the land under the water vests largely [but not universally] in the promoters of the relevant Statute, and is invariably subject to the limitations of those Statutes.

 

[Mike Todd]

 

Riparian rights are ALL about the water, nothing to do with the land beneath the water.

 

Riparian owners alongside natural, non-tidal watercourses possess the incident ownership of the bed – but that is simply part and parcel of the bank ownership, it is not a ‘right’.

 

Riparian owners alongside most natural, tidal watercourses do not own the riverbed as an incident of the bank ownership; the general [rebuttable] presumption is that ownership of the bed vests in the crown.

 

The rights attendant upon the riparian ownership are, however, the same – they can be summarised as a right to the use of the water flowing alongside the bank – and whoever owns the bed has exclusive rights to that land under the water, which do not, however, comprise ANY common law rights to the use of the water above it.

 

In terms of mooring boats therefore, the right belongs to the riparian owner not the bed owner, with this caveat: there is no right to interfere with the bed in third party ownership, as e.g. laying anchors or more permanent mooring structures thereupon [excepting only, in public navigable rivers, the right to temporary anchorage in the course of navigation].

 

On artificial watercourses such as canals, riparian rights are only such as were conferred under the Statute empowering their construction; the ownership of the land under the water vests largely [but not universally] in the promoters of the relevant Statute, and is invariably subject to the limitations of those Statutes.

 

Great - thanks!