Well, we’ve published this under ‘Law’. Thing is, it’s not.
No person shall moor or leave a vessel in contravention of a notice prominently displayed by the board in or beside any inland waterway
(a) prohibiting the mooring of all vessels, or of vessels other than the kind of vessel or vessels specified in the notice, on any part of the inland waterway so specified; or
(b) making requirements as to the manner in which vessels are to be moored in the part of the inland waterway so specified and (without prejudice to the generality of the foregoing) the means by which vessels are to be fastened or secured; or
(c) specifying the maximum period, hours of the day or night, or days of the week, during which mooring (whether of all vessels, or of vessels of a kind or kinds specified in the notice) is permitted or prohibited, as the case may be.
It looks a bit like it, no? It looks very strangely like the Section 17 we refer to often.
It’s a part of the Waterways Bill introduced by British Waterways that became the 1995 Waterways Act. It’s a part that Parliament’s sub-committee told BW to remove otherwise the whole Bill would be rejected. BW have.
Its also a piece of information that CRT are currently under scrutiny, again, by the Information Commissioners for refusing to release into the public domain in breach of the Freedom of Information Act, again.
It appears very like the new restrictions the CRT are imposing now in the South Eastern Region and elsewhere. Restrictions for which they were refused the powers in 1995.
So the next time you moor somewhere and see a sign that says “48 hour mooring” and your think it’s unreasonable or maybe was put in place at the request of local householders. Or perhaps the long empty stretches of apparently forgotten “permanent” moorings at Claverton and elsewhere, remember this Section of the Waterways Bill which didn’t become law.