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Petition for wide beam owners


peterboat

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2 hours ago, rusty69 said:

The farcical change in licence fees has been brought about by the narrow minded people in their narrowboats.

Some will have filled in the questionnaire agreeing with this result, others will have other preferred options, but I doubt the decision was made by anyone in a Narrowboat.  

36 minutes ago, Horace42 said:

If 'size' is used, fees should be based on 'footprint' area in the water. Easy enough to measure (and certify by the builder or BSS examiner) and assign to the boat - and with computers - easy to set a base rate (fixed element + per area element) to use to calculate a pro-rata total.

 

Did you put this point forward in the consultation phase?  It was one of the options considered and it was one of the options to tick on the questionnaire. 

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My boat is so beautiful it enhances the canals it frequents. But for some others this does not apply so they should pay an ugly levy, say an extra %age on the degree of uglyfication.  Unfortunately this would mean I would incur a surcharge when I get around to installing my cratch.

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Let's be honest, narrowboaters are in the majority on the waterways. They have the loudest voices. Is it fair though that they can influence a consultation process so much,  where the result does not impact on them,  the majority ?  If this happens in the next "Consultation", what other minority group of boaters will be the target of their vitriol? Continuous cruisers ?

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11 minutes ago, Joe Bourke said:

Let's be honest, narrowboaters are in the majority on the waterways. They have the loudest voices. Is it fair though that they can influence a consultation process so much,  where the result does not impact on them,  the majority ?  If this happens in the next "Consultation", what other minority group of boaters will be the target of their vitriol? Continuous cruisers ?

Deep drafted boats?

 

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I will have to pay the extra,  though I can't even access most of the Northern wide canal region, never mind getting anywhere near a "tighter" beam canal.  I chose my boat knowing that. I was quite happy paying for the licence even with a much reduced cruising area, but now I am expected to pay even more. I am moored in Goole where there must be at least 200 GRP cruisers in the area. The majority must be in the 25ft to 35ft length that are also widebeams, and will pay up to 20% extra. How is that fair? Most widebeam boats on the Northern widebeam canal system will never see the areas that are under pressure down South, they just can't get there. I have seagoing widebeam neighbours who cannot even get through the first bridge from Goole on the Aire & Calder and have paid their licence without complaint, now they have a 20% rise. Please remember all widebeams aren't 70ft x 14ft clogging up the Southern canals.

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1 hour ago, mrsmelly said:

True. The increases etc where decided then the bullshit consultation paper put out there, in fairness I think most of us knew that from day one. Think I will buy a tent.

Not sure that theres anywhere on the Sawley Cut to pitch a tent when it floods.

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5 minutes ago, Joe Bourke said:

Most widebeam boats on the Northern widebeam canal system will never see the areas that are under pressure down South, they just can't get there.

 

This is a false argument. If these boats can only reach say, 25% of the system they must be using the bit they are trapped in 4 times as much.

And taken to extreme this line of reasoning says someone buying a truly vast boat i.e. too big to fit though any lock, should pay nothing as they can't go anywhere. Clearly not fair.

 

 

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8 minutes ago, matty40s said:

Not sure that theres anywhere on the Sawley Cut to pitch a tent when it floods.

Yeah too bloomin true. My bro in law is parked with his boat on the towpath side here at the moment and he said well we are ok with the lock gates closed innitt. I smiled and informed him of when we moored here and it was too deep on the towpath for wellies so my mate and I wore waders :lol: his expression was priceless.

6 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

This is a false argument. If these boats can only reach say, 25% of the system they must be using the bit they are trapped in 4 times as much.

And taken to extreme this line of reasoning says someone buying a truly vast boat i.e. too big to fit though any lock, should pay nothing as they can't go anywhere. Clearly not fair.

 

 

I suppose that actualy makes sense Mike :D 

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3 hours ago, Athy said:

...and before that, they weren't. Plus ca change...have licence fees always been based simply on length ever since they were first introduced, I don't know?

Back in the day 50/60'smost leisure boats wider than 7Ft were converted life boats & their length /width ratio was such as the beam was rarely wider than 8foot ish the odd broads crosiers were few & far between IIRC they got a license for the same price LOA as narrow beam I have no Idea on the northern "Wide Boat fees but the numbers involved were probably insignificant I payed a flat fee for my pair & when I was contracted to BW received a refund  on the following years license provided I got duplicate loading tickets  some of the older established non BW carriers still had a form of toll payments& they didn't pay when running empty again IIRC the change came in 62/3 when BW carrying fleet more or less ceased Trading I guess the numbers of Leisure wide beam boats has brought about the change To me it's a fairer system as a 70 ft 10ft 6inch wide beam occupy s the same water space a 1/1.2 70Ft narrow bots so they are losing out on a 35ft license fee or from the other side the owner is getting that fee price for "Nowt" & if wide owner is unhappy he can always sell & buy a less size boat & then there's a matter of lock usage wide lock = 2 narrow boats can usually pass wide boat only it & a varying amount of space wasted True they are restricted in the canals they can cruise but they knew the size restrictions when they purchased  the wide size boat

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2 hours ago, Cheshire cat said:

I thought C&RT said several times that the result would be income neutral. Who recieved a cut in licence fees?

 

Greenie for that.

I too have been wondering this. A point worth pressing CRT on, I feel.

Maybe solar-powered boats should get their licences reduced. And nuclear-powered boats. Any that don't rely on fossil fuels.

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