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London Boaters - Government Review


Alan de Enfield

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16 hours ago, magictime said:

Not being funny Dave, but is it not overstating things a bit to suggest the IWA proposal would 'rule out' commuting? It'd only be an annual requirement after all - you could stay within an hour of work 50 weeks of the year and still hit the target by doing a holiday cruise or two a bit further afield. This is pretty much what we've done in the past - 90% of the time the boat's stayed in West/North Yorkshire, but once or twice a year we've headed off to do the Four Counties or something.

I would hope you're right, but I don't think that's what IWA mean by minimum cruising range.  If it were, then the current CRT range of 20-25 miles could be acheived by shuffling around a 5 mile stretch and then popping off on a long weekend a couple of times a year.  CRT are pretty clear that they don't find that acceptable.

14 hours ago, Graham Davis said:

I'm trying, and failing, to understand why you think those named places would be required to be visited to fall in line with the 100 mile figure. It certainly isn't the way I read their suggestion.

It was acheived by putting a dot in a map over Oldbury and drawing a circle round it with a 100 mile diameter.  Hey presto - a 100 mile cruising range is shown.  What do you think they mean?

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12 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

It was acheived by putting a dot in a map over Oldbury and drawing a circle round it with a 100 mile diameter.  Hey presto - a 100 mile cruising range is shown.  What do you think they mean?

But that isn't "range" is it? Your response is somewhat simplistic, but not unexpected. Perhaps you need to read the "proposal" again.
I would suggest that you could easily take a journey of 100 miles around Oldbury and still remain within a road journey time of 2 hours from Birmingham.

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16 hours ago, matty40s said:

The IWA think that continuous cruising should only be available to those people who have retired and are going to do most of the system every Summer and return their boats to a marina so CRT can close the system down each Winter to repair it ready for next year.

I have yet to find a senior IWA representative who thinks otherwise.

Well said. I suspect the current legislation regarding boats without a home mooring* was no more created to facilitate cheap access to the system for folks with time and wealth on their side than it was to provide a cheap means of residential boat ownership. No discussions on enforcement should favour either one or the other.

 

Let's hope it won't just be a taking shop; if the Government are involved it should be aimed at legislative change. Otherwise it's down to CRT to get their enforcement in order in terms of the current legislation without Government interference.

 

JP

 

* - let's not forget the law requires no one to do anything continuously.

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28 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

But that isn't "range" is it? Your response is somewhat simplistic, but not unexpected. Perhaps you need to read the "proposal" again.
I would suggest that you could easily take a journey of 100 miles around Oldbury and still remain within a road journey time of 2 hours from Birmingham.

If that isn't a range, then what do you think a range is?

 

If I were to suggest that my cat roamed over a 1 mile range during the night, then a circle with 1 mile diameter would be exactly what I had in mind.  I most definitely wouldn't be suggesting that my cat was taking a 1 mile journey during the night.

Edited by Dave_P
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10 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

I would hope you're right, but I don't think that's what IWA mean by minimum cruising range.  If it were, then the current CRT range of 20-25 miles could be acheived by shuffling around a 5 mile stretch and then popping off on a long weekend a couple of times a year.  CRT are pretty clear that they don't find that acceptable.

Well... I can well imagine that CRT would be less than impressed if you tried that, and would pretty soon start sending out emails/letters warning you about staying in the same area for too long, but as far as I know it would be within the letter of their current guidance: move at least a mile to a new 'place' at least every 14 days, don't just shuffle between two or three spots, and cover an overall range of at least 15-20 miles a year. So whether they'd actually want to risk a legal challenge, I don't know.

 

Even if so, though, surely if you start talking about much longer distances (say a 'regular' range of 25-50 miles and an 'occasional' range of 100), that looks much more like a genuinely on-the-move lifestyle and the sort of thing you could hardly complain about if you stipulated an annual cruising range of 100 miles. Otherwise why not push for a 100-mile quarterly range, say? Or a 'no return within 3 months/6 months' rule, maybe, to rule out adopting even a 25- or 50-mile 'home' area?

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10 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

If that isn't a range, then what do you think a range is?

I think you could define it in one of two ways, one of which is your method. However you have inadvertently created a range of minimum 200 miles since that is the linear distance between two opposite points on your circle. Of course if you navigated down a canal between those opposite points the distance would be a lot more than 200 miles. Also you wouldn't have to visit all the points on the edge to have achieved the range.

 

So you could draw a 50 mile radius around Oldbury to give a 100 mile range or perhaps simply add up the linear length of all the different individual sections cruised in a year and ensure that it adds up to at least 100 miles. In which case cruising the entire BCN once a year would qualify since there is 100 miles of it.

 

I suspect there are other reasonable definitions of what constitutes a cruising range. And reasonableness is all the law requires (not that the law says anything about cruising range before anyone thinks I am endorsing such a proposal).

 

JP

Edited by Captain Pegg
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I think the London issue will be sorted by the low emission zone being enforced on boats, its a win win for the Mayor he gets money for the ones that decide to stay and the local people will be the first to bubble the boaters as they know something will happen when they complain about smoke/diesel engines running

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22 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

If that isn't a range, then what do you think a range is?

 

If I were to suggest that my cat roamed over a 1 mile range during the night, then a circle with 1 mile diameter would be exactly what I had in mind.  I most definitely wouldn't be suggesting that my cat was taking a 1 mile journey during the night.

Then it suggests that we have a different opinion of what constitutes "range".
For me, if my cat ranged for one mile around the house it would mean that it went on a journey of 1 mile, possibly in a circle, not 1 mile directly away from the house.

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1 hour ago, Captain Pegg said:

Well said. I suspect the current legislation regarding boats without a home mooring* was no more created to facilitate cheap access to the system for folks with time and wealth on their side than it was to provide a cheap means of residential boat ownership. No discussions on enforcement should favour either one or the other.

 

Let's hope it won't just be a taking shop; if the Government are involved it should be aimed at legislative change. Otherwise it's down to CRT to get their enforcement in order in terms of the current legislation without Government interference.

 

JP

 

* - let's not forget the law requires no one to do anything continuously.

You are absolutely correct - BUT - the law does say that your will bona fide navigate for the duration of your licence (1 year ?) with stops of no more than 14 days and will then move to a new 'place'.

 

From the 1995 Act :

"..the applicant for the relevant consent satisfies the Board that the vessel to which the application relates will be used bona fide for navigation throughout the period for which the consent is valid without remaining continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances".

 

As has been said by a Judge (in a CC court case) - (from memory), words to the effect - "Moving from Bath to Bristol simply to justify not having a mooring is not bona-fide navigating"

 

C&RTs definition of 'range' given by Enforcement Manager Simon Cadek :

 

When we are looking at boat movements we are looking for characteristics of bona fide navigation, these fall roughly into four categories:

· Range: by range we mean the furthest points a boat has travelled on the network, not merely the total distance travelled. While the BW act does not stipulate what that distance is the Trust has previously said that anyone travelling a range of less than say 20 miles (32km) would struggle to satisfy the Trust that they are engaged in bona fide navigation and that normally we would expect a greater range.

. For the avoidance of doubt, a small number of long journeys over a short period of time, followed or preceded by cruising in a small are of the network would not generally satisfy the Trust that you are engaged in bona fide navigation.

 

· Overstaying: we look to see how often boats overstay, either the 14 day limit on the main length of the canal, or shorter periods where local signage dictates, for example short stay visitor moorings.


While we are flexible with the occasional overstay from most boaters due to breakdown, illness or other emergencies, we will look at the overall pattern balanced with range and movement pattern in order to form a view.


Overstay reminders are issued when a boat is seen in the same area for more than 14 days. While we are unable to say how far you need to travel each time you move, we would advise that you normally travel further than a few km each time.


This will prevent you from getting reminders and depending on the length of other trips you make and how many times you turn back on yourself, should increase your overall range over the course of your licence.


· Movement: Continuous Cruiser Licences are intended for bona fide (genuine) navigation around the network, rather than for a boat to remain in one mooring spot, place neighbourhood or area.


We would expect boats on these licences to move around the network such that they don’t gravitate back to favoured areas too often i.e. in a way that it’s clear to us that they’re living in a small area of the waterway.


The basic principle of this is that these licences are not intended for living in an area and if it looks like a boat is habitually returning to a particular part of the waterway then this would not generally satisfy the Trust.


Within an acceptable range we’d expect a genuine movement, so for example it would not satisfy the Trust if a boat went on a 60 mile trip during the course of say two weeks, then returned to cruise in an area of say 5 miles the remainder of the time (figures are examples only).


Generally speaking, the smaller the range the less we’d expect to see boats back at the same locations. Of course people need to turn around and they’re perfectly free to re-visit places they have been to before, it’s living in a small area on this kind of licence that would cause a problem.

 

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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30 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

Well said. I suspect the current legislation regarding boats without a home mooring* was no more created to facilitate cheap access to the system for folks with time and wealth on their side than it was to provide a cheap means of residential boat ownership. No discussions on enforcement should favour either one or the other.

 

Let's hope it won't just be a taking shop; if the Government are involved it should be aimed at legislative change. Otherwise it's down to CRT to get their enforcement in order in terms of the current legislation without Government interference.

 

JP

 

* - let's not forget the law requires no one to do anything continuously.

Be careful what you wish for. Any new legislation would be unlikely to benefit any group of boaters. I have never found it hard to understand what ccing is and when working in one place obviously always took a mooring. Piss takers will eventualy ruin it for all genuine user groups. The inland waterways system is not a housing estate and shouldnt have to bow down and accept people who blatantly have no intention of adhering to a few easy rules that have been around long before most of them ever bought a boat.

  • Greenie 4
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45 minutes ago, Captain Pegg said:

I think you could define it in one of two ways, one of which is your method. However you have inadvertently created a range of minimum 200 miles since that is the linear distance between two opposite points on your circle. Of course if you navigated down a canal between those opposite points the distance would be a lot more than 200 miles. Also you wouldn't have to visit all the points on the edge to have achieved the range.

 

So you could draw a 50 mile radius around Oldbury to give a 100 mile range or perhaps simply add up the linear length of all the different individual sections cruised in a year and ensure that it adds up to at least 100 miles. In which case cruising the entire BCN once a year would qualify since there is 100 miles of it.

 

I suspect there are other reasonable definitions of what constitutes a cruising range. And reasonableness is all the law requires (not that the law says anything about cruising range before anyone thinks I am endorsing such a proposal).

 

JP

I’d considered both possibilities but the guidance is not clear. However, my ‘circle’ is approx 100 miles in diameter (50 mile radius), not 200 as you suggest. 

31 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

Then it suggests that we have a different opinion of what constitutes "range".
For me, if my cat ranged for one mile around the house it would mean that it went on a journey of 1 mile, possibly in a circle, not 1 mile directly away from the house.

Sorry but that’s not a range. Also 0.5 of a mile, not 1 mile. The cat could walk the other way. 

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31 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

You are absolutely correct - BUT - the law does say that your will bona fide navigate for the duration of your licence (1 year ?) with stops of no more than 14 days and will then move to a new 'place'.

 

From the 1995 Act :

"..the applicant for the relevant consent satisfies the Board that the vessel to which the application relates will be used bona fide for navigation throughout the period for which the consent is valid without remaining continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances".

 

As has been said by a Judge (in a CC court case) - (from memory), words to the effect - "Moving from Bath to Bristol simply to justify not having a mooring is not bona-fide navigating"

 

C&RTs definition of 'range'

 

When we are looking at boat movements we are looking for characteristics of bona fide navigation, these fall roughly into four categories:

· Range: by range we mean the furthest points a boat has travelled on the network, not merely the total distance travelled. While the BW act does not stipulate what that distance is the Trust has previously said that anyone travelling a range of less than say 20 miles (32km) would struggle to satisfy the Trust that they are engaged in bona fide navigation and that normally we would expect a greater range.

. For the avoidance of doubt, a small number of long journeys over a short period of time, followed or preceded by cruising in a small are of the network would not generally satisfy the Trust that you are engaged in bona fide navigation.

 

· Overstaying: we look to see how often boats overstay, either the 14 day limit on the main length of the canal, or shorter periods where local signage dictates, for example short stay visitor moorings.


While we are flexible with the occasional overstay from most boaters due to breakdown, illness or other emergencies, we will look at the overall pattern balanced with range and movement pattern in order to form a view.


Overstay reminders are issued when a boat is seen in the same area for more than 14 days. While we are unable to say how far you need to travel each time you move, we would advise that you normally travel further than a few km each time.


This will prevent you from getting reminders and depending on the length of other trips you make and how many times you turn back on yourself, should increase your overall range over the course of your licence.


· Movement: Continuous Cruiser Licences are intended for bona fide (genuine) navigation around the network, rather than for a boat to remain in one mooring spot, place neighbourhood or area.


We would expect boats on these licences to move around the network such that they don’t gravitate back to favoured areas too often i.e. in a way that it’s clear to us that they’re living in a small area of the waterway.


The basic principle of this is that these licences are not intended for living in an area and if it looks like a boat is habitually returning to a particular part of the waterway then this would not generally satisfy the Trust.


Within an acceptable range we’d expect a genuine movement, so for example it would not satisfy the Trust if a boat went on a 60 mile trip during the course of say two weeks, then returned to cruise in an area of say 5 miles the remainder of the time (figures are examples only).


Generally speaking, the smaller the range the less we’d expect to see boats back at the same locations. Of course people need to turn around and they’re perfectly free to re-visit places they have been to before, it’s living in a small area on this kind of licence that would cause a problem.

 

 

Thanks. That saved me from typing all that on my phone. It seems many are still confused about the distinction between journey and range, and are also confused about what ‘bona fide’ means. 

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18 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

I’d considered both possibilities but the guidance is not clear. However, my ‘circle’ is approx 100 miles in diameter (50 mile radius), not 200 as you suggest. 

I could have sworn I read a post where you said you had drawn a circle of 100 miles radius from Oldbury. Must be going mad.

 

JP

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Just now, Captain Pegg said:

I could have sworn I read a post where you said you had drawn a circle of 100 miles radius from Oldbury. Must be going mad.

 

JP

If I did, I didn’t mean to. 50 mile radius, 100 mile diameter. 

 

Of course, you could measure range in a linear way, along the canal. In Birmingham this would shrink the overall area down. In London and Bristol, not so much. 

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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

the law does say that your will bona fide navigate for the duration of your licence

No, the law doesn't say that. That would imply that the boat needs to be navigating throughout - the law says that you need to use the boat bona fide for navigation throughout the period of the licence. It's analogous to the difference between cooking in your cooking pot throughout the course of your holiday, and using your cooking pot for cooking throughout the course etc.. i.e. the first implies you will be cooking throughout, the second implies that when you are cooking, you'll be using your cooking pot. if that makes sense.

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27 minutes ago, Teasel said:

No, the law doesn't say that. That would imply that the boat needs to be navigating throughout - the law says that you need to use the boat bona fide for navigation throughout the period of the licence. It's analogous to the difference between cooking in your cooking pot throughout the course of your holiday, and using your cooking pot for cooking throughout the course etc.. i.e. the first implies you will be cooking throughout, the second implies that when you are cooking, you'll be using your cooking pot. if that makes sense.

 

Seems relevant.

 

enhanced-buzz-17968-1424653242-5.jpg.79ea26fa73ed6904d0655e955ec72a38.jpg

 

enhanced-buzz-19599-1389811749-10.jpg.3f9bca043e62c14b7edee4030b8f9849.jpg

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49 minutes ago, Teasel said:

No, the law doesn't say that. That would imply that the boat needs to be navigating throughout - the law says that you need to use the boat bona fide for navigation throughout the period of the licence. It's analogous to the difference between cooking in your cooking pot throughout the course of your holiday, and using your cooking pot for cooking throughout the course etc.. i.e. the first implies you will be cooking throughout, the second implies that when you are cooking, you'll be using your cooking pot. if that makes sense.

The boat should be bona fide navigating for the duration of the licence - except when it is moored, for periods of up to 14 days.

 

"..the applicant for the relevant consent satisfies the Board that the vessel to which the application relates will be used bona fide for navigation throughout the period for which the consent is valid without remaining continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances".

 

Does your interpretation differ ?

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52 minutes ago, Teasel said:

No, the law doesn't say that. That would imply that the boat needs to be navigating throughout - the law says that you need to use the boat bona fide for navigation throughout the period of the licence. It's analogous to the difference between cooking in your cooking pot throughout the course of your holiday, and using your cooking pot for cooking throughout the course etc.. i.e. the first implies you will be cooking throughout, the second implies that when you are cooking, you'll be using your cooking pot. if that makes sense.

That doesn't seem right. You wouldn't be failing to use your cooking pot for cooking throughout the course of your holiday just because you sometimes used your grill instead, or to use your narrow boat for navigation throughout the period of your licence if you sometimes used your kayak instead - would you?

 

But I do think the business of 'navigating throughout...' is often taking to imply more than it does. People often talk as if it means navigating most days, but I always think it's a bit like using your barbecue for cooking throughout the year or your tent for camping throughout the year - i.e. you might only use your barbecue for cooking, your tent for camping or your boat for navigating a couple of times a month, but so long as you do so all year round, you're doing so 'throughout the year' in the relevant sense.

 

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42 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Does your interpretation differ ?

I think so yes - the law doesn't say the boat has to be navigating throughout the period of the licence but that it has to be used for navigation throughout that period - there is a difference. I think my interpretation's along the same lines as magictime's above (although my cooking pot analogy may not have been very useful). As long as the boat's being used for navigation all year round (without stopping continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period is reasonable in the circumstances), there's no need for it to be continuously navigating. It seems like your interpretation is that the boat has to be navigating throughout - rather than it has to be used for navigation throughout.. 

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14 minutes ago, Teasel said:

I think so yes - the law doesn't say the boat has to be navigating throughout the period of the licence but that it has to be used for navigation throughout that period - there is a difference. I think my interpretation's along the same lines as magictime's above (although my cooking pot analogy may not have been very useful). As long as the boat's being used for navigation all year round (without stopping continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period is reasonable in the circumstances), there's no need for it to be continuously navigating. It seems like your interpretation is that the boat has to be navigating throughout - rather than it has to be used for navigation throughout.. 

I get what you’re saying, but, given that you have to move every 14 days or less, the distinction is moot. 

Edited by Dave_P
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But as a judge pointed out iirc, a ferry that regularly crosses the river from one side to the other is bona fide navigating when it does so but it doesn’t go very far. 

 

Edited by WotEver
Got me tenses muddled
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7 minutes ago, Dave_P said:

the distinction is moot.

I think it's important. The 2004 Guidance, which interprets s17, said the law required 'a progressive journey  around the network' and the 2011 guidance (now in force) says 'a genuine cruise'. The distinction is the difference between the law requiring the boat to be on one cruise, or used for many cruises. My interpretation of the law is that it requires the latter. CRT's, BWB's and some others seems to be the former. 

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4 minutes ago, Teasel said:

My interpretation of the law is that it requires the latter. CRT's, BWB's and some others seems to be the former. 

CaRT et al are therefore effectively sticking with the 2004 guidance and not re-interpreting it, simply using different words to describe the same thing. 

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