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DEFRA Working Party into Boats Used As Accommodation.


Alan de Enfield

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39 minutes ago, Yank on the Cut said:

For many years I paid council tax to the City of Westminster when living aboard my boat on a BW leisure mooring in Blomfield Road, Little Venice.

 

I wonder if you could outline the mechanism by which you managed to get them to accept you as a resident without having a postcode please? The have been a number of threads on here over the years where boaters have tried to pay council tax and they all report their local council refuses to accept their payments, saying they need a postcode. Many thanks if you can. 

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2 minutes ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

I wonder if you could outline the mechanism by which you managed to get them to accept you as a resident without having a postcode please? The have been a number of threads on here over the years where boaters have tried to pay council tax and they all report their local council refuses to accept their payments, saying they need a postcode. Many thanks if you can. 

Surely everywhere in Britain has a postal code.

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1 minute ago, Athy said:

Surely everywhere in Britain has a postal code.

They built a new housing estate near me and I was talking to one of the residents who was saying that they were having problems getting deliveries because they hadn't been allocated a post code yet - rural new builds also need to be allocated a new post code if the don't sit between two houses that don't already have one. Only developed land is given a post code, land or water next to the develop land wouldn't have a post code. 

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7 minutes ago, Athy said:

Surely everywhere in Britain has a postal code.

 

How do I discover the postcode of the remote bit of offside canal bank I rent from CRT then please? Access is via a footpath across a cow field and a railway. Nearest road or other building is about 500m. 

 

 

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19 minutes ago, Athy said:

Surely everywhere in Britain has a postal code.

I think you need to attach a name/number and street to get a post code (well that's what I remember from coding systems to use post codes in the past), you can't just apply it to an area. If I recall correctly a post code covers in the region of 15-30 actual addresses, so an urban post code is a small area whereas a rural one can cover a very wide area (which is why apps like 'just 3 words' may grow in popularity).

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2 minutes ago, Tumshie said:

OI! what am I - chopped liver. ?

From your avatar, it's hard to tell - but I have edited my post.

 

I see that my post code covers a warehouse, a pub, a school, two shops and about 40 houses, so I guess they must vary in size (post code areas, I mean, not the houses).

 

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1 hour ago, Athy said:

I see that my post code covers a warehouse, a pub, a school, two shops and about 40 houses, so I guess they must vary in size (post code areas, I mean, not the houses).

I asked a friend on mine who is a postie about this and he said that post codes are acutely specific. They are allocated to streets and or buildings but that they don't cover an area in the same way as a parish might. In the very rural parts of the country you might find three houses spread out over fifty miles that all have the same post code but that is because they are all on the same road. The street that I live on has evolved over many decades and has at least three different post codes with in it. 

Edited by Tumshie
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I think the clue is in the name.  A post-code represents a space identified by and registered with the Post Office, often with a road name.  if you look up a post code it won't put you outside a house but in the middle of the space covered by that code.  When we registered our address we chose (foolishly as it turns out)  to add a road name and consequently ended up with a different post-code to those of our neighbours on either side, who simply have their house name and the village.  When delivery drivers try to find us they end up in the middle of the village which is a good half-mile away.  To overcome this, we tend to use our neighbours post-code for deliveries, although that is not our registered address. 

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11 minutes ago, Tumshie said:

I asked a friend on mine who is a postie about this and he said that post codes are acutely specific. They are allocated to streets and or buildings but that they don't cover an area in the same way as a parish might. In the very rural parts of the country you might find three houses spread out over fifty miles that all have the same post code but that is because they are all on the same road. The street that I live on has evolved over many decades and has at least three different post codes with in it. 

Good research. Yes, all the properties covered by our post code are on the same road, over a distance of about half a mile.

2 minutes ago, Tanglewood said:

  if you look up a post code it won't put you outside a house but in the middle of the space covered by that code. 

Quite correct. Our current car is our first to be fitted with a Sat. Nav., whose lady announcer thinks that we live in the former police house a quarter of a mile away.

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33 minutes ago, Athy said:

Good research. Yes, all the properties covered by our post code are on the same road, over a distance of about half a mile.

Quite correct. Our current car is our first to be fitted with a Sat. Nav., whose lady announcer thinks that we live in the former police house a quarter of a mile away.

That might be a good thing. My 'home' address in the sat-nav is deliberately well away from my house.

Just on the off-chance, if we are out somewhere, and my car gets stolen, the thief won't be able to drive straight to my house and boat and burgle that as well.

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1 minute ago, Horace42 said:

That might be a good thing. My 'home' address in the sat-nav is deliberately well away from my house.

Just on the off-chance, if we are out somewhere, and my car gets stolen, the thief won't be able to drive straight to my house and boat and burgle that as well.

What a vivid imagination you have!

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2 hours ago, Athy said:

What a vivid imagination you have!

Not imagination but a very real possibility.

 

If your car is stolen away from your home there is a very good chance that you are not at home with no means of getting back home as quick as the thief, who now has your car and perhaps a few hours start on you as well.

 

I have seen police warnings about this and I too, have a false address within my village as my "home" address in my satnav.

 

George

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5 hours ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

I wonder if you could outline the mechanism by which you managed to get them to accept you as a resident without having a postcode please? The have been a number of threads on here over the years where boaters have tried to pay council tax and they all report their local council refuses to accept their payments, saying they need a postcode. Many thanks if you can. 

This is correct. When we moored in Leicester some years ago now we were worried about being caught up with a large council tax bill so actualy went to the council offices and to the council tax department and explained we were moored just off abbey park blah blah blah and they simply were not interested saying quite simply they couldnt make a charge as there was nothing to levvy a charge against. Things I dont think have changed law wise since then. Council tax is levied on dwellings or residential moorings etc with a fixed address from what I have paid over the years but not on boats that dont have a residential mooring. People with houses pay council tax and people with boats buy a licence for the boat but people who dont own a boat dont pay for a boat licence. Some things council tax wise have change with regards property as when we had posession of two house we didnt pay at one of the and this has since changed iirc?

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6 hours ago, Tanglewood said:

That article is poorly researched, and out of date. A boat itself can be held liable for CT if is remains in place for a year or more, regardless of not being attached to a regular, dedicated mooring spot (i.e. to a “rateable hereditament”)

 

It was so held in 2013 by the Court of Appeal in REEVES (LISTING OFFICER) V NORTHROP: CA 17 APR 2013. This has to rank as the most delightfully informal and sympathetic adverse judgment I have ever read.

 

http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2013/362.html

 

Comment by the judge - “As to the statutes applicable: ‘If prizes are to be offered for legislative gobbledegook then the foregoing would surely qualify. Having undertaken that trawl through these various statutes I confess to my shame I am no wiser nor would any ordinary citizen be without help from the Practice Note.’

 

In conclusion -”I am afraid, therefore, that Randy Northrop must lose and the appeal must be dismissed. I have a sneaking sympathy for him because he did not use many of the services which council tax is supposed to provide and it may have been harsh to list him in band A. But all of that is of no moment. He had indicated that he was soon to move and he has moved from the mooring. He has thrown off the bow lines and sailed away from the safe harbour though whether to catch the trade winds in his sails or just withstand the buffetings of the gales in the English Channel I know not. In as much as this is the penultimate judgment I shall write after 18 years in the Court of Appeal, I am a kindred spirit who has sailed away from the safe harbour of the Royal Courts of Justice, not at all sure how to explore, or what to dream or what I am about to discover.”

 

It remains the fact that differing councils apply the rules as suits them best. One reasonably sure way to get onto the Tax Bands even where the Council forbid residential use, is to apply for housing benefits! Those benefits will apply even for a 'CC'ing boat.

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On 26/11/2018 at 15:28, Arthur Marshall said:

It would be easy enough to set up an automated tracking system for boats to run in conjunction with a towpath check for non-moving ones.  If, that is, all boats were compelled to show a registration number in a specific place and a specific format.  And if there was any way of policing or tracing those who didn't. Which there isn't.

Let's face it, if CRT can't even organise the record keeping at the Harecastle Tunnel and the Anderton Lift to be automatically noted on their systems,  a conspiracy theory that suggests world domination is a non-starter.

I have been amazed how well vehicle number plate recognition works in some places and how it is integrated into other customer services. Staying overnight at a motel within the perimeter of a motorway service station I was a little surprise that by the time we had reached the check in not only the registration but place of parking was already identified. For that level of application is cannot be unduly expensive. It has to be at least feasible that an automated system could be used on the canals with a high degree of compliance and low level of false reports. 

 

The issue of mandating registration plates is only as difficult as gaining the necessary legislative  time (assuming that the lawyers conclude that CaRT does not currently have the powers. Compliance would be no more difficult than at present and would, potentially give CaRT an additional means of tackling non-registration and licensing.

 

All of this pre-supposes a high level of acceptance to avoid too many disgruntled folk vandalising the system (always possible whatever security is used) Key to this is always to link it with the provision of additional benefits (however perceived) to canal users.

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2 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

The issue of mandating registration plates is only as difficult as gaining the necessary legislative  time (assuming that the lawyers conclude that CaRT does not currently have the powers. Compliance would be no more difficult than at present and would, potentially give CaRT an additional means of tackling non-registration and licensing.

The law already exists (since 1965)

 

Marking of vessels
5.  (1) Every vessel on any canal shall have exhibited on the outside
thereof so as to be clearly legible at all times at a distance of
twenty yards
 (i) her name and such index mark and number (if any) as the
Board shall have assigned to the vessel

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2 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

The law already exists (since 1965)

 

Marking of vessels
5.  (1) Every vessel on any canal shall have exhibited on the outside
thereof so as to be clearly legible at all times at a distance of
twenty yards
 (i) her name and such index mark and number (if any) as the
Board shall have assigned to the vessel

I think the point that was being made when I posted was that it needs some constraint on the design for the plate and its position in order to make the APNR feasible. I think that it has been argued here before that CaRT do not have such a power - but that argument may not, of course, be valid.

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7 minutes ago, Mike Todd said:

I think the point that was being made when I posted was that it needs some constraint on the design for the plate and its position in order to make the APNR feasible. I think that it has been argued here before that CaRT do not have such a power - but that argument may not, of course, be valid.

I suspect it also needs to be make clear that no other such plates may be displayed.  Nothing like hiding in plain sight....

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Just to add to the ANPR debate BIL received a letter asking why he was using  a vehicle that was untaxed on the highway. The vehicle concerned had been on SORN for years and he was moving it on a trailer to get some restoration work done. Took a while to get out of that one. Now when he moves vehicles he covers the numberplate.

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54 minutes ago, DaveP said:

I suspect it also needs to be make clear that no other such plates may be displayed.  Nothing like hiding in plain sight....

I remember a tale from the late great Lawrence Hogg, he took a call from the powers to be in the local office informing him that his boat Barnet had been overstaying up the Shroppie somewhere. When he asked the lady to look out of the office window and see if his boat was on its usual proper mooring, she was surprised to see it there. 

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