The General Election will take place on Thursday 4th July, and the polls will be open from 7am – 10pm. Register by 18th June if you want to vote.
You can vote even if you live on a boat without a fixed address, by declaring a “local connection” to the place you are currently moored in or spend a lot of your time in. If you have a “care of” address, you do not have to use that address to register to vote. You need photo ID to vote – see below.
The Energy Security and Net Zero (ESNZ) Parliamentary Committee is to carry out an inquiry into Preparing for the Winter, including the continued exclusion of boat dwellers and other itinerant or off-grid households from the Government’s Energy Bills Support Scheme (EBSS). The Committee will hear verbal and written evidence in September 2023. You can send your own testimony to the Committee by email to commonsesnz@parliament.uk or by post to-Energy Security and Net Zero Committee, House of Commons, London SW1A 0AA. You can also submit evidence online here: https://committees.parliament.uk/call-for-evidence/3185/
The deadline for submitting your evidence is 25th August.
There will be local elections in England on 4th May 2023. The Elections Act 2022 brought in the requirement to show photographic identification for voters at these and all future elections. If you already have the right ID document, remember to take it when you vote.
If you don’t have one of the accepted forms of photo ID, you can apply for a free voter ID document, which is known as a Voter Authority Certificate.
If you want to vote on 4th May and you don’t have any of the accepted forms of ID, you will need to apply for a Voter Authority Certificate by 5pm on 25th April or you will be unable to vote.
See https://www.gov.uk/apply-for-photo-id-voter-authority-certificate
Julian House has a vacancy for a Gypsy, Roma, Traveller & Boater Outreach and Engagement Worker for Bath and North East Somerset. The part-time job covers BaNES for Roadside Travelling Community Welfare Support, and Keynsham to Dundas on the water. There is no fixed deadline to apply, Julian House recommends submitting applications as soon as possible so as not to miss out.
Friends, Families and Travellers has launched a new tool to support Gypsies, Travellers and members of the public to write to their MP to register their concerns about the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Bill. This new law will criminalise both peaceful protest and the nomadic way of life.
The Bill proposes extremely harsh legislation to criminalise trespass, which will criminalise Travellers living on roadside camps and is likely to impact upon everyone who is or wishes to live nomadically by culture, choice or necessity, including liveaboard boaters without a home mooring.
The deadline for completing the 2021 Census is the end of April, and the Census telephone helpline has added a special line for people living on boats or in caravans, vans, tents or other transient accommodation. This follows the severe difficulties that some liveaboard boaters experienced trying to get a Unique Access Code to do the census online. You can now call the Census helpline and select option 4 .
CRT has stated that it will remove any items left on or beside the towpath between Smelly Bridge (Bridge 173) and Avoncliff if these are not removed before April 2021. Due to the pandemic, CRT has provided a skip at Bridge 173 for boaters to dispose of any unwanted items.
CRT is threatening to terminate the licences of boaters who “persistently obstruct the towpath or use Trust land for storing items from their boat”. This is another reason to oppose and resist CRT’s proposed changes to the Boat Licence Terms and Conditions