Zero tolerance

[b0atman]

If within the terms by-laws regulations and whatever else is in place CRT where to strictly enforce these rules? then think how much income would be gained .

The charge of £25 for overstaying is already in place in some areas but how much has been collected ?

Due to CRT incompetence the paper licence has become a farce where any knuckles rapped.

It is a requirement to have visible at i believe 20ft name and number on both sides of boat and even on any covers if they mask the boat ones.

Zero tolerance works for the benefit of all and would initially bring in much needed revenue however this i believe would soon diminish as people started behaving and conforming .There should be no 3% licence evasion then .

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[NB Lola]

I would see  that zero tolerance is not cost effective, 3% non compliance is quite an enviable figure.

[alan_fincher]

24 minutes ago, b0atman said:

The charge of £25 for overstaying is already in place in some areas but how much has been collected ?

 

I would suggest "very little", because CRT are aware they are on very shaky ground when trying to apply this charge, for which it is very questionable they have the legal powers to enforce.

 

The last I knew, whilst they were invoicing some people with this charge for "overstaying", only a small percentage of those invoiced had paid up, they had no intention to pursue the charge against those who did not.

[ditchcrawler]

8 minutes ago, NB Lola said:

I would see  that zero tolerance is not cost effective, 3% non compliance is quite an enviable figure.

I would suggest it would be very difficult to get below this figure when you take into account boats being sold when the licence expires and then sitting on a trade plate that isn't registered to the boat. Boat owners dying and their affairs being sorted out or even , heaven forbid  someone forgetting and doing it the next month. These would all be in default until the paper work catches up.

[Boater Sam]

There is zero tolerance on road vehicle licences and insurance and we know how well that doesn't work.

[BEngo]

37 minutes ago, Boater Sam said:

There is zero tolerance on road vehicle licences and insurance and we know how well that doesn't work.

Even with standardised number plates (supposedly) and  a huge network of ANPR cameras and speed traps. 

N

[b0atman]

Enforcement officers/rangers now cover the lengths so no extra cost for labour .Any one not paying charge should have it put on licence pay up or lose it.Evasion shows no respect for other boaters .The 3% is all year not just the short term as mentioned.Removing boat I.d is part of the strategy for evasion any decent person would simply put a notice in window for example to cover the period whilst waiting for say sign writer.

[rowland al]

2 hours ago, b0atman said:

 

It is a requirement to have visible at i believe 20ft name and number on both sides of boat and even on any covers if they mask the boat ones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

20ft name and number, that’s pretty big. How do you comply with a 18ft boat? ?

 

As Aian says, the £25 overstay fine is not enforceable and the 1995 act states you can moor for up to 14 days. 

 

Personally I think there are better ways to raise revenue (and save wasting revenue) than aggravating the majority of rule abiding boaters with threatening signs. 

Edited September 3, 2018 by rowland al

[sirweste]

I don't bother with putting my licence on display. Don't see the point and thus won't waste the resource on something arbitrary (the irony of wasting electric, electronics etc to type this isn't lost on me!) 

[Alan de Enfield]

9 minutes ago, rowland al said:

...........the £25 overstay fine is not enforceable and the 1995 act states you can moor for up to 14 days. 

The Act states that "you cannot remain in one place for more than 14 days", (and remember that 'place' is NOT just a boat sized piece of water but an 'area'). - BUT that only applies to CCers.

Boats with a home mooring have no legal right to moor (under the 1995 Act) but C&RT have 'gifted' this under their Licence T&Cs

[alan_fincher]

41 minutes ago, b0atman said:

Any one not paying charge should have it put on licence pay up or lose it.Evasion shows no respect for other boaters .

This may be what you personally would like to happen, but without a change in the law, it can not.

CRT are under no illusions that they can't refuse a licence because of some non payment of another charge they have levied on the licence holder.  If money is paid by the boat owner for a licence, and CRT have no valid reason in law for refusal of that licence, then they have to issue that licence, and cannot appropriate the licence money for any other purpose.

You may well wish it were otherwise, but those are the undisputed facts.  I would suggest getting parliamentary time to achieve what you suggest is highly unlikely to ever happen.

The £25 overstay charges are almost certainly not legal - if CRT were confident they were, do you not imagine they would test it in court, rather than to ignore non payment?

In my view CRT are currently squandering far more than the additional 3% or so of licence fees that they theoretically could collect on all manner of other bad ideas or mismanagement of various 3rd party contracts.  That's something that can be challenged, and doesn't need a change in any law to bring improvements.  I would rather concentrate my campaigning on something that could be changed, than something that realistically never will.

[nb Innisfree]

2 hours ago, alan_fincher said:

 

I would suggest "very little", because CRT are aware they are on very shaky ground when trying to apply this charge, for which it is very questionable they have the legal powers to enforce.

 

The last I knew, whilst they were invoicing some people with this charge for "overstaying", only a small percentage of those invoiced had paid up, they had no intention to pursue the charge against those who did not.

It's been suggested that even a licence enforcement is legally questionable. 

[rowland al]

16 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The Act states that "you cannot remain in one place for more than 14 days", (and remember that 'place' is NOT just a boat sized piece of water but an 'area'). - BUT that only applies to CCers.

Boats with a home mooring have no legal right to moor (under the 1995 Act) but C&RT have 'gifted' this under their Licence T&Cs

I don’t think the OP is differentiating between those with a home mooring and CC’ers.

 

Gifted? Are you suggesting there Is a law saying that those with a home mooring can’t moor up when on the cut? 

 

Speaking as a CC’er,  I don’t see why those with a home mooring  should be treated any differently to CC’ers once out on the cut.  I’ve not seen any evidence of this anyway.

 

[Alan de Enfield]

8 minutes ago, rowland al said:

Gifted? Are you suggesting there Is a law saying that those with a home mooring can’t moor up when on the cut? 

No, read what I did say :

 

There is no law allowing HMers to moor up on the Cut, there is a law allowing CCers to moor up on the cut.

That is very different to saying there is a law stating that HMers can't moor up on the Cut.

 

Its a similar principle to a 'statutory' and a 'permissive' footpath - the permissive footpath (mooring allowance) may be revoked at any time.

 

A HMer boat mooring could actually be charged with Obstruction under the 1983 Act.

 

There was a lengthy thread about this some time ago and a very short excerpt of one of Nigel Moores posts :

 

Obstruction remains on the statute books as an offence, updated even in the 1995 Act, and overstaying stated times on selected sections has been used with County Court approval to qualify the boat – being thereby regarded as an obstruction - for being moved under s.8(5) of the 1983 Act. Anything longer than an overnight stay, as I see it, is simply permissive – with the exception of boats without home moorings, for whom only, the right to 14 days (or more if circumstances dictate) is enshrined in law.

[Arthur Marshall]

13 minutes ago, rowland al said:

Gifted? Are you suggesting there Is a law saying that those with a home mooring can’t moor up when on the cut?

 

No, it's rather the opposite.  There's no law saying us home moorer's CAN moor up for 14 days, but there is one saying CCers can.  Technically, it appears that it's just CRT being nice that lets us tie up on their towpath without paying for the privilege.

[TheBiscuits]

7 minutes ago, rowland al said:

Gifted? Are you suggesting there Is a law saying that those with a home mooring can’t moor up when on the cut? 

Not quite.  There is no law that allows boats with a home mooring to moor anywhere other than their home mooring, but boats without a home mooring are legally entitled to moor  without remaining continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances."

 

11 minutes ago, rowland al said:

Speaking as a CC’er,  I don’t see why those with a home mooring  should be treated any differently to CC’ers once out on the cut.  I’ve not seen any evidence of this anyway.

In practice, they are all treated the same despite some people complaining about it.  There was a push to clamp down on "ghost moorings" a few years ago, where people were claiming/paying for a mooring in the cheap North then staying in one place on Southern waters and claiming they didn't need to move because they were not CCing. 

[Alan de Enfield]

16 minutes ago, rowland al said:

Speaking as a CC’er,  I don’t see why those with a home mooring  should be treated any differently to CC’ers once out on the cut.  I’ve not seen any evidence of this anyway

The difference is that the Law states that CCers MUST be in a different 'place' every 14 days, there is no law saying that HMers must move to a new place every 14 days. HMers would be (are ) within their rights to moor for a few days, move 30 yards moor for a few days, move 30 yards ……….. ad-infinitum

As stated by HHJ Halbert in C&RT Vs Mayers

 

6:3 There are clear anomalies in both positions, CRT clearly regard the occupation of moorings by permanently residential boat owners who do not move very much as a significant problem (see paragraphs 3.5 and 3.6 above). However, neither the statutory regime in subsection 17(3) nor the guidelines can deal with this problem. A boat which has a home mooring is not required to be “bona fide” used for navigation throughout the period of the licence, but neither is it required to ever use its home mooring. The act requires that the mooring is available, it does not say it must be used. The guidelines also have this effect. 

[rowland al]

Ok, thanks for the clarification guys. 

[rgreg]

1 hour ago, sirweste said:

I don't bother with putting my licence on display. Don't see the point and thus won't waste the resource on something arbitrary (the irony of wasting electric, electronics etc to type this isn't lost on me!) 

So when it was a legal requirement to put your road tax disc in the car did you exercise the same principal and "not bother" to?  

[Boater Sam]

Why bother doing anything then? You could be a smelly anchorite living in a cave instead of writing on a boating forum.

[sirweste]

15 minutes ago, rgreg said:

So when it was a legal requirement to put your road tax disc in the car did you exercise the same principal and "not bother" to?  

Given the option and a reduced likelihood of getting told off I wouldn't have bothered, but you got one at the postie and you mostly likely would have got in trouble - which would have undoubtedly used more resources.

I see little gain in showing it on the boat, if i'm going through a tunnel, or lift and they want to see it, for whatever reason I fetch it up on me phone. Simples. Not one for arbitrary rules me. 

1 minute ago, Boater Sam said:

Why bother doing anything then? You could be a smelly anchorite living in a cave instead of writing on a boating forum.

New word for me there, ta! I do bother doing many things, but only things that I deem worth while. Risk assessment, value assessments etc. I ruin the planet enough as it is, so I try were I can in other areas. Off topic has hell this one!

[rgreg]

13 minutes ago, sirweste said:

Given the option and a reduced likelihood of getting told off I wouldn't have bothered, but you got one at the postie and you mostly likely would have got in trouble - which would have undoubtedly used more resources.

I see little gain in showing it on the boat, if i'm going through a tunnel, or lift and they want to see it, for whatever reason I fetch it up on me phone. Simples. Not one for arbitrary rules me. 

New word for me there, ta! I do bother doing many things, but only things that I deem worth while. Risk assessment, value assessments etc. I ruin the planet enough as it is, so I try were I can in other areas. Off topic has hell this one!

So because you can get away with not doing it you don't bother. CRT must despair at the resistance they face at every level. 

[Jess--]

CRT have previously stated that THEY do not need to see your license in the window since technology available now allows them to check it via registration number instantly (where in the past it would have taken days)

However they backpedaled from this when it was pointed out that showing the license was never one of their requirements but is in fact a legal requirement.

The only way it will be legal to not display your license is when changes have been made to the relavent acts surrounding the license.

 

as things stand right now it is very much like the last few years of the tax disc in cars, not really needed, but legally required.

 

[sirweste]

1 hour ago, rgreg said:

So because you can get away with not doing it you don't bother. CRT must despair at the resistance they face at every level. 

Yep exactly this. It's not needed, when the law was written it was, now it's arbitrary so I don't bother. Even CRT aren't that fussed about seeing it. You seem hung up on this fairly inconsequential point, I haven't displayed it for over 2 years I'd say which anecdotally suggests CRT ain't fussed. So resources well saved in my opinion 

[ditchcrawler]

1 minute ago, sirweste said:

Yep exactly this. It's not needed, when the law was written it was, now it's arbitrary so I don't bother. Even CRT aren't that fussed about seeing it. You seem hung up on this fairly inconsequential point, I haven't displayed it for over 2 years I'd say which anecdotally suggests CRT ain't fussed. So resources well saved in my opinion 

Next time I go down the lift I will photograph the notice that says its required to display it and when I next do Harecastle I will ask the tunnel keeper what action he takes if I am not displaying one