CRT Licensing Review final report

[john6767]

7 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

I couldn't afford the lump sum payment when I bought my boat and that stayed the same for 10 years,  although I now can the payment comes at MOT and car tax time, plus a couple of other biggish outgoings and I would rather keep a buffer of cash, plus I rather like the convenience of a monthly direct debit.

There you go, 1 answer as to why

 

So would you count yourself as one who will benefit financially from the licensing changes?

[tree monkey]

58 minutes ago, john6767 said:

So would you count yourself as one who will benefit financially from the licensing changes?

As I've never taken the prompt payment discount into account not sure how I can.

Not having looked into the proposals to deeply,  I think I will eventually get a 2.5% discount for monthly direct debit? 

[john6767]

3 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

As I've never taken the prompt payment discount into account not sure how I can.

Not having looked into the proposals to deeply,  I think I will eventually get a 2.5% discount for monthly direct debit? 

Part of the proposal is to not increase the basic licence fee due to the removal of the prompt payment as it now stands.  And as you say even if you continue to pay monthly you would be able to get 2.5% discount eventually.  So to me this says that the potential winners here are the people who for whatever reason did not take advantage of the existing prompt payment scheme.

I also note that the report does say that 75% of licence holders currently take advantage of the prompt payment, so there are around 8000 licence holders who do not get the prompt payment today.  So those of the 8000 those that have narrowboats should get at net reduction in their real costs compared to those currently licensing a narrowboat with the prompt payment.

It would seem that this will probably mean that in the long term more people will choose to pay monthly, as the cost of that would be 2.5% rather than 10%, so ultimately that will be a loss to CRT, so could thit wipe out the benefits to CRT perhaps?  One assumes that all this will have been modelled, so they must think not.

[Naughty Cal]

22 minutes ago, tree monkey said:

As I've never taken the prompt payment discount into account not sure how I can.

Not having looked into the proposals to deeply,  I think I will eventually get a 2.5% discount for monthly direct debit? 

Which will probably be wipe out by any increases due to inflation anyway 

[MtB]

4 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

Which will probably be wipe out by any increases due to inflation anyway 

 

Missing the point. The 2.5% discount still make the licence 2.5% cheaper than for someone not qualifying for it.

[Naughty Cal]

4 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Missing the point. The 2.5% discount still make the licence 2.5% cheaper than for someone not qualifying for it.

My response was to Tree Monkey who was saying that they will soon qualify for a 2.5% discount for paying by direct debit. Not to everyone.

[Victor Vectis]

On 07/03/2018 at 13:04, system 4-50 said:

and so do I. But lumbering our children with learning all that unecessary garbage? There are more useful things to learn.

Learning to cope with unecessary garbage (ugh!) rubbish is a useful life skill.

On 07/03/2018 at 13:08, jds_1981 said:

Makes sense to have a significantly increased charge in London. Often see boats to or three deep nowadays. How would this be managed though? Lots of the boats don't pay their licences here or abide by the rules as it is. I think the cart would need some extra enforcement powers.

Evidence please.

A boat might not display a licence but that does not mean it is unlicenced.

[Arthur Marshall]

31 minutes ago, Victor Vectis said:

Evidence please.

A boat might not display a licence but that does not mean it is unlicenced.

Is there any other reason that a boat should show neither a number or license when both are specified in the T&Cs?

Apart from a short time after purchase or repaint, I can't think of one.

[MtB]

6 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Is there any other reason that a boat should show neither a number or license when both are specified in the T&Cs?

Apart from a short time after purchase or repaint, I can't think of one.

 

Plenty of boats around however that show a number but no licence (mine included) which may lead to the original allegation that there are loads of unlicenced boats around. 

I'd be interested to discover CRT's policy regarding boats showing neither though. I doubt those are licensed. 

 

[tree monkey]

10 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Is there any other reason that a boat should show neither a number or license when both are specified in the T&Cs?

Apart from a short time after purchase or repaint, I can't think of one.

Mine rarely shows the paper licence,  it gets delivered 100 miles away, I pick up post about every 4 months or so and when I get back the pile of post goes into the things to do pile.

I dont have a printer to print one off either and simply won't buy one just to print off the license

I do have my index number on show

[jds_1981]

44 minutes ago, Victor Vectis said:

Learning to cope with unecessary garbage (ugh!) rubbish is a useful life skill.

Evidence please.

A boat might not display a licence but that does not mean it is unlicenced.

Hearsay - As in I was having a chat with a towpath ranger where he said that a lot of the boats were unlicensed and that the lea was a bit like "the wild west".

4 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Plenty of boats around however that show a number but no licence (mine included) which may lead to the original allegation that there are loads of unlicenced boats around. 

I'd be interested to discover CRT's policy regarding boats showing neither though. I doubt those are licensed. 

 

Easy to look up licenses online if the boat number is showing.

CaRT obviously aren't very diligent at insisting licenses are shown.

[alan_fincher]

21 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

Is there any other reason that a boat should show neither a number or license when both are specified in the T&Cs?

Apart from a short time after purchase or repaint, I can't think of one.

The fact that on multiple occasions CRT have said they don't actually look at the paper licences, and indeed that at one stage they even actively said they no longer needed to be displayed?

OK they later said their staff had been in error saying the latter, but even now thy say if they can identify the boat, they are not interested in the licence.

It's not hard to see why people don't bother, really!

[TheBiscuits]

2 hours ago, tree monkey said:

As I've never taken the prompt payment discount into account not sure how I can.

Not having looked into the proposals to deeply,  I think I will eventually get a 2.5% discount for monthly direct debit? 

And another 2.5% discount for using the online licensing system from 2020.

[alan_fincher]

10 minutes ago, jds_1981 said:

Hearsay - As in I was having a chat with a towpath ranger where he said that a lot of the boats were unlicensed and that the lea was a bit like "the wild west".

CRT publish the percentage of unlicensed boats by region on an annual basis.

Have you actually looked it up for the region that covers the Lee and Stort, or do you just want to make allegations based on hearsay?

[Naughty Cal]

1 minute ago, alan_fincher said:

CRT publish the percentage of unlicensed boats by region on an annual basis.

Have you actually looked it up for the region that covers the Lee and Stort, or do you just want to make allegations based on hearsay?

Are the boats that don't display an index number or licence included in those figures?

 

[alan_fincher]

18 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

I'd be interested to discover CRT's policy regarding boats showing neither though. I doubt those are licensed.

I've actually no idea what percentage of boats displaying neither are unlicensed, but I suggest you cant know whether your doubts are true or not.

Just now, Naughty Cal said:

Are the boats that don't display an index number or licence included in those figures?

They say "yes".

[MtB]

19 minutes ago, jds_1981 said:

Easy to look up licenses online if the boat number is showing.

 

 

So given it is you alleging lots of boats re unlicenced, and you have been checking, could you post up some numbers please? 

Thanks. 

[Alan de Enfield]

5 minutes ago, Naughty Cal said:

Are the boats that don't display an index number or licence included in those figures?

 

 

5 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

 

They say "yes".

Interesting - how do they know what they don't know ?

If there is no registration number, how can they check if it has a licence

[Jess--]

22 minutes ago, jds_1981 said:

Easy to look up licenses online if the boat number is showing.

most of the time when I have checked my own boat the checker doesn't recognise it and asks for sighting details (usually the first 4-5 months after my new license comes into effect), on that basis I don't have a lot of faith in the accuracy of reports based on people using the tool.

[jds_1981]

19 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

CRT publish the percentage of unlicensed boats by region on an annual basis.

Have you actually looked it up for the region that covers the Lee and Stort, or do you just want to make allegations based on hearsay?

I'm quite happy to go on hearsay from a towpath ranger for now as they're someone actually on the ground doing things like checking boats.

Have you got a link? I've just looked for these figures but could only see an average of 3.7%

https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/about-us/our-regions/london-waterways/related-articles/london-boating-bulletin/london-boating-bulletin-may-2017

Presuming the figures for the lea are no worse or better, with hundreds of boats, I'd be happy with the term 'lots'.

13 minutes ago, Jess-- said:

most of the time when I have checked my own boat the checker doesn't recognise it and asks for sighting details (usually the first 4-5 months after my new license comes into effect), on that basis I don't have a lot of faith in the accuracy of reports based on people using the tool.

I rarely use the checker. The few times I have (normally when checking 'abandoned' continuous cruisers') they've come back as licensed.

[alan_fincher]

19 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

Interesting - how do they know what they don't know ?

If there is no registration number, how can they check if it has a licence

I assume because most of the boat checkers are pretty familiar with the boats on their patch, and know what a boat actually is, even if it can't be discerned from the outside by Joe Public.

I suggest there are very few boats on the system that they have absolutely no idea what they are.

Certainly I have heard them state in meetings that evasion figures include all boats on the systems not just the ones that you or I could discern an index number for.

[Alan de Enfield]

1 minute ago, alan_fincher said:

I assume because most of the boat checkers are pretty familiar with the boats on their patch, and know what a boat actually is, even if it can't be discerned from the outside by Joe Public.

I suggest there are very few boats on the system that they have absolutely no idea what they are.

Certainly I have heard them state in meetings that evasion figures include all boats on the systems not just the ones that you or I could discern an index number for.

I accept that they know what a boat actually is, but the grey area (for me) is how do they know which boat it is ?

I realise you are just repeating what C&RT have told you, but, If there is a boat with no reg number displayed, how can they check if it is licenced ?

Can they do 'identification from partial descriptions' as the DVLA can with cars - ie 60 foot, black, narrowboat ?

I would suggest with C&RTs level of IT skills and systems it is unlikely.

[alan_fincher]

14 minutes ago, jds_1981 said:

Presuming the figures for the lea are no worse or better, with hundreds of boats, I'd be happy with the term 'lots'.

Easy to over-dramatise it though.

From memory the London region, (that includes the Lee and Stort) was the highest evasion rate in the country at 5.5%, (whereas South East region achieve under 2% IIRC).

So, given I think there about 4000 boats in the whole London region, whilst somewhere just over 200 may be unlicensed, it is easy to overlook that more like 3,800 are fully legitimate.

Obviously 5.5% is not ideal, but t's easy to give the impression that a very much larger percentage of the boats you are looking at are unlicensed, which clearly they are not.

[Tuscan]

I think Alan is both right and wrong. Right in that the in converting the percentage rate into a number it’s a relatively small number of boats. However the number of boats which are  licensed incorrectly ( and therefore whose license is invalid) as they are rented out in the growing London ( and elsewhere) rental market is I suspect at least a further 5%

[jds_1981]

16 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

Easy to over-dramatise it though.

From memory the London region, (that includes the Lee and Stort) was the highest evasion rate in the country at 5.5%, (whereas South East region achieve under 2% IIRC).

So, given I think there about 4000 boats in the whole London region, whilst somewhere just over 200 may be unlicensed, it is easy to overlook that more like 3,800 are fully legitimate.

Obviously 5.5% is not ideal, but t's easy to give the impression that a very much larger percentage of the boats you are looking at are unlicensed, which clearly they are not.

So had a rough count on Google maps and I think about 500 boats between North circular and limehouse cut. Assuming the 5% figure that's 25 boats which imho is a lot.

5% itself also seems really high, people regularly perform license checks. Even cars are only at 1.8% evasion (1.4 2015) and they are really mobile.