Posts Tagged ‘mooring policy’

Libel threat: Editor offers to remove articles in return for change in enforcement

Saturday, October 20th, 2012

The Editor of this web site has offered to remove the articles that CRT alleges are defamatory, in return for CRT making certain binding undertakings to change the way that it enforces s.17(3)(c)(ii) of the 1995 British Waterways Act.

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Quiet mooring zone kicks off at Honey Street

Saturday, October 20th, 2012


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London Calling

Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

London has an entirely different canal community to ours but there is considerable crossover in pressure on the infrastructure and attitudes of CRT and a small minority of the local population.

On the Canalworld discussion forum a London Boater recently posted this. I thought it so pertinent and a worthy message so here it is quoted in entirety. Thanks to Neil T

London.

Causes more prejudice than any other word on [CanalWorld Forum].

There are too many boats for the moorings available here whether visitors or residential continuous cruisers. You have to moor double. You can’t come to town and expect a nice bit of towpath everywhere. You have to moor up outside strangers and expect to be moored against if you have towpath.

Yes there are a sizeable minority of continuous cruisers whose boats are untidy enough to allow prejudice in at the drop of a hat.

The Waterways officials simply do not have the staff or the balls to address the multiplicity of problems that are common in London whether on or off the water.

300 mooring spaces in the Olympic park would solve the problem BUT only if the charges acknowledged that residential / continuous cruisers simply do not have the money to pay £7000 a year for a mooring. Making them available at that kind of price ios not making them available.

Where is the intense lobbying by Waterways officials to solve all of these problems by harnessing the commitment to an Olympic legacy and securing mooring rights along the MILES of available space? Once in a lifetime possibility here. Where is the lobbying from on high?

You have to get used to compromise in London. I have just paid more that £2000 for six months winter mooring, been forced off the best moorings in the area which have been made visitor moorings and now watch non-payers staying where everybody would like to be, next to the facilities, and paid up winter moorers shifted up to a concrete wall, no access to water and disposal, long walk to get off towpath.

This w/e I wanted to cruise up to Islington to go to the Barbican with friends and their kids to a concert. Beautiful day, easy mooring at Islington. Great concert. Come back to the residential mooring area that I’ve paid for around 6pm and all full, space gone. So now me and my £2000 receipt are on a bit of towpath outside of any visitor or winter mooring designation at all. That’s compromise.

The easiest way to tidy up boats moored along the canal is to enact a law which says nothing on a boat’s roof whatsoever except the gangplank / boathook / punting pole on the usual bracket and as many solar panels as you like. NOTHING else on the roof OR on the towpath. Some people would find this very hard but it is possible and would shut the door to that prejudice that liveaboards in London are a bunch of scrofulous freeloading polluters. When you meet any individuals on boats in London they are almost universally great people.

But look along the pall of smoke through the humming generators and throbbing engines, the overflowing disposal point, the big black rats in the rubbish bins, endless cans of old engine oil etc. etc and you don’t see great people.

But you are not looking at scrofulous freeloading polluters either. Boaters have made large areas of London towpath safe for whole communities to walk /jog/ bicycle along and generally reclaim from being no-go areas. You are looking at a system under intense pressure, run by an organisation that has had a large part of its budget stolen as part of a political project and which is staffed by people so entrenched in their way of doing things that they cannot see far enough to think out of the box.

Mooring problems and prejudice could be addressed in London but it needs real imagination and some political clout across many borough boundaries. The salaries of top waterways staff should and could be buying that imagination.

CRT says Drifters shares are insignificant

Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

The CRT has been keen to emphasise that its interest in the hire boat holiday marketing consortium Drifters Leisure Limited is insignificant.

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K and A mooring strategy consultation plans changed despite BW statement

Wednesday, September 12th, 2012

CRT’s plans for the consultation on the K and A Local Mooring Strategy have changed again. A sub-group of the Local Waterway Partnership (formerly the Partnership Board) will review the mooring strategy and will decide what consultation is required. CRT claims this sub-group will be “independent”. At the final meeting of the Local Mooring Strategy Steering Group in October 2011 it was agreed that the Local Waterway Partnership would review the mooring strategy. BW then unilaterally disbanded the Local Mooring Strategy Steering Group before its work was complete. However, at that point BW still intended to carry out a full public consultation.

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Discredited CRT Legal Director and Head of Boating booted and shrunk

Sunday, August 5th, 2012

The CRT Trustees decided recently that Nigel Johnson, the Legal and Corporate Services Director, will retire in 2014 because “We have decided that in the longer term the Trust does not require the expertise of a full time Legal Director”. His post will not be replaced. We have also learnt that Head of Boating Sally Ash has had responsibility for moorings shifted away from her, with her team being shrunk to cover policy on boating and mooring only.

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CRT Head of Boating runs hire boat company

Thursday, July 12th, 2012

On the day that the Canal and River Trust held its launch in London, boaters have discovered that Head of Boating Sally Ash has been the director of a canal holiday brokerage company since 2004. Liveaboard boaters have often speculated about the reason behind her department’s policy of harassment and bullying of boaters without home moorings, and this conflict of interest provides a possible explanation.

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BaNES traveller policy may include boat dwellers

Thursday, March 1st, 2012

Bath and NE Somerset Council is looking at whether to include boat dwellers in its provision for travellers.

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BW backs down on Lee and Stort mooring restrictions

Tuesday, September 13th, 2011

Following strong opposition from boaters in London, BW has backed down over its proposals for draconian and unlawful mooring restrictions for boats without moorings on the Lee, Stort and Hertford Union navigations. However, BW still proposes to set up a local mooring strategy along the lines of the K and A mooring strategy. BW has also proposed to issue ‘roving mooring permits’ which ‘allow’ the boater to do what they are already entitled to do under Section 17 (3) c ii of the 1995 British Waterways Act, at a proposed cost equivalent to an average permanent mooring fee.

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Moorings Proposals May 2011

Wednesday, May 25th, 2011

Bath to Dundas

  • Visitor moorings at Bath top lock to be 72 hours not 48.
  • Make the stretch opposite Bath Narrowboats “No mooring” and the laybys in Sydney Gardens “No mooring”.
  • Extend the length of 72 hour moorings at Darlington Wharf by 100 metres towards Folly footbridge, losing 100 metres of 14 day space. Extend the length of 24 hour moorings at Darlington Wharf by 100 metres, losing 100 metres of 72 hour space.
  • Change the 48 hour moorings opposite Kennet Park in Bathampton to 72 hours. Make Bathampton wharf (opposite the school) 24 hour mooring not 48.
  • Remove the permanent moorings at Bathampton and make the space between the end of the wharf and the winding hole 72 hours.
  • Make the stretch from the winding hole to Bathampton swing bridge 14 days (officially some of it was 48 hour but the signs had disappeared).
  • Relocate the permament moorings to the concrete stretch east of Bathampton swing bridge (opposite Jenks’s), losing 245 metres of 14 day space.
  • Make the 48 hour moorings at Claverton 72 hours and allow the Pumping Station to reserve 2 boat lengths on open days.
  • Reduce the permit-holder moorings at Claverton by 90 metres and make this 72 hours.
  • Make the stretch opposite Digger’s moorings at Millbrook swing bridge (west of Dundas) “No mooring”.
  • Reduce the length of the 72 hour moorings west of the turnover bridge at Dundas by half and make the other half 14 days.
  • Create 4 boat lengths of 24 hour moorings immediately west of the turnover bridge at Dundas, losing 4 boat lengths of 72 hour moorings.
  • Dundas basin to stay 24 hours but increase the 48 hour moorings east of the aqueduct to 72 hours.

Dundas to Bradford on Avon

  • Make two boat lengths by the bridge at Murhill (Easter Spot – bridge 174) 24 hours
  • Change the 48 hour moorings to 14 days west of Avoncliff aqueduct, but the canal is very shallow here.
  • Make the west corner of the aqueduct “no mooring” for safety reasons. Reduce the 24 hour moorings east of Avoncliff by 1 boat length and move the permit-holder moorings there west by 1 boat length, gaining 1 boat length of 14 day space.
  • Put a water tap and 4 boat lengths of permanent moorings west of Meadows (Smelly) bridge (173).
  • Make the 48 hour moorings above and below Bradford lock 72 hours.

Bradford on Avon to Devizes

  • Make the 48 hour moorings east of Bradford on Avon marina (the Street) and at Hilperton 72 hour.
  • Extend the 24 hour moorings at Semington to 120 metres.
  • It was also proposed to do away with all 48 hour moorings and make them either 24 or 72 hours.

    Other restrictions and charges There may be other restrictions such as:

    • Setting a minimum distance that a boat without a mooring (ie a continuous cruiser) must travel before turning round.
    • Limiting the time a boat without a mooring can stay in any one stretch of the canal per year and making a daily charge of around £20 to £40 to stay longer than this limit
    • A daily charge, around £20 to £40, for staying longer than the time limit on a visitor mooring, applicable to all boats.
    • These daily charges to double from around £20 to around £40 if not paid on the spot on the day.
    • Renewal of the boat licence to be refused unless outstanding charges are paid.

    Legal issues

    It may well be that British Waterways does not have the legal power to enforce these proposals. However, the point of the questionnaire is to find out what impact they will have on you.