magnetman

One day someone is going to do a proper replica and go around it with a really big hammer making dents where they are supposed to be. Like the brand new torn jeans.

The issue here will be with neighbouring land developments. It is common for people to like seeing Boats but put a bunch of residential craft under their balconies and it seems less appealing. It will be quite difficult to ribbon develop offside moorings in inner London. Towpaths may be doable but that interferes with the amenity value of canal towpaths. I think ultimately a different strategy may be adopted which is one which discourages using Boats for living on in the first place. I don't see the towpaths being converted given the potential amenity value for many thousands of locals who have nothing to do with Boats just to provide for a tiny minority. Offside is always going to be general aggravation with adjacent interests. I reckon either a push to get people into marinas or a move to gradually take out the option of living on towpaths. In ten years' time if there are still any canals with water in them it will be a different landscape altogether and living on the cheap on public amenity land parcels will be a thong of the past.

I was considering doing a spreadsheet about it but was told to "do one' I think they perhaps meant summit else.

I believe they will dispose of vessels effectively if left on the towing paths. The NT do have some workboats and they like it tidy. Not sure what is in the licensing terms but suspect they move fast to avoid problems.

Yes you need to have a mooring. They also have lengthspersons who do manage the waterway. Obviously this is a small unconnected waterway without any other exits than a staffed lock which is chained when not in use.

Yes. I guess the principle that most people want to be legal is important here so enforcement would be less necessary if everyone knew what they were supposed to do. The NBTA are quite good at getting clarity. If people claim not to understand what they are meant to be doing then someone will come along and tell them and the result is the existing behaviour becomes more difficult or even illegal. It really does seem like the NBTA are working to make it harder to live on Boats off grid on land owned by government bodies or charities. The river Wey is interesting as you basically can"t continuously cruise. Its not an option. If this happens on CRT canals the NBTA will be the first to moan but at the end of the day they will have been instrumental in causing the outcome. Its politics not Boats.

I was mostly referring to Alan de E suggestion of including personal circumstances. I suppose in a way given the large number of different situations the best approach might be to gradually make it more and more difficult to live adjacent to towpaths. The NBTA can help with causing this outcome. It is the most likely outcome logically because IF a certain behaviour is identified as problematic the best thing to do is to remove that type of behaviour from the list of options available. Maybe it's nothing to do with it but I have a suspicion this Commission may have been set up because a problem has been identified related the way a group of people have been using the land owned by the CRT. Maybe it is the neckerchief and leather waistcoat wearing owners of restored monkey boats that are the problem. I think not. I think this is about the squatters. Lots of shouting about 'rights' CRT geyser gets stabbed to death on a towpath Some random person costs the CRT a six figure sum to eject from their property. It's not rocket science to work out what is likely to happen.

Example. Toll at bulls bridge for London. You need to come back out the other side on the Lea, return to BB or exit onto the Thames in order to stop paying the daily London rate. Someone who wants to have a cruise in and out of London can do so but someone who wants to stay there for weeks on end will pay a lot more. Yes but it would be easy to charge by time instead of tonnage. It is the same general principle. The priority in trading days was to not hang around. The priority of a lot of people using towpaths these days is to hang around for as long as possible. It's all about demand. Once upon a time people wanted to shift several tonnes of goods as fast as possible. Charge them money for this. Now the demand is for static move as little as possible accommodation. Charge them money for this. It's obvious. The CRT need money they have a captive audience who they can get it from. Do it.

I have no objections to any of it as I do not now and will not in the future have a vessel on CRT water. I've already paid the CRT well over a hundred grand in my time on the canals and not intending to spend any more. I just think the admin of checking that people are correctly declaring what they have and what they are doing would be too complicated if there are multiple licence types. It is not the calculator it is the admin work. Some people will always look for loopholes that's how it works. Or the navigation authority put in toll gates and charge per hour for remaining i a certain area. Always worth remembering that when canals were individually operated by their respective Canal Companies there would have been stop locks and toll houses for exactly this purpose. That is how it was originally designed so it's not particularly ridiculous to suggest it might go that way again. Basic economics dictates that something in high demand but low supply (urban waterways in London) should attract a higher price than the other one (rural waterways in the shires) which has a high supply and lower demand. It is worth bearing in mind there is no PRN on canals so the CRT can close locks and physically prevent access if they want to. This means that if done right with adequate security staff a toll system would potentially be quite easy to implement. If the Aylesbury arm killing of a CRT operative has given them the willies then technology can step in.

That gets too complicated. It seems likely to me that the answer lies in increased regulation of the use of the towpath moorings. It's not all that complicated. Use of towpaths is probably what most enforcement is about. It is easier to be unlicensed on a towpath than on a private recorded mooring. Not always but in general. Wild West towpath situation. Also interesting to see if there is a way to speed up the S8 process and get unlicensed Boats off the water and binned as fast as possible at low cost. The navigation authority should ideally get rid of those who are challenging and undermining it's position as an authority. There should be low tolerance of unlicensed for a start. Get rid of them and do it yesterday.

What does this bit mean? It could be read as 'tighten up the rules and let everyone know there is no tolerance' Or 'Relax the rules so that fewer people feel the need to break them' The problem is if there is an increasing need for enforcement it could just be because of the type of people who are moving to the water and their attitude to authority. So if the rules were relaxed people might just continue to take the piss of it. It's an interesting situation. It just seems to me given what has been happening in society in general that use of CRT owned property will become subject to more arduous conditions. I can't see them making it easier because of the runaway train effect.

When the auction moorings started with British Waterways around 2010 (not sure of the exact year) the end prices were published however shortly after that the CRT (2012) opted to keep them private unless you had been an active bidder. It is possible that people have become generally aware that Universal Credit housing allowance can pay for moorings. It is probably not all that common but this could potentially alter the end price due to the fact the person bidding is not paying for it out of their own pocket. I don't know how easy it is to get the DwP to pay for a non residential mooring but I do think it can be done. DWp/UC will definitely pay for cruising licence and/or residential moorings. I do not see a big difference in circumstance between someone who is continously cruising NFA and someone who has a towpath mooring NFA. Use the local Job Centre as your address for the claim.

My insurance never asks for a survey. So I am in fact worried about it sinking. The only person who will ever authorise overplating or preferably replating will be me.

Is this one a bit wide? I may be thinking of a different Boat but in my memory Buckden had a steel extension cabin on it. I know Grand Union towns were a bit wide anyway but maybe worth careful measuring. I could have the wrong one it has been a while since I saw it.

Whoever says that bovine excrement sinks Boats is clearly talking bullshit. Ask the farmer if the herd whose waste he is disposing of is mostly made up of females If it is a dairy farm you may be okay. (wanders off to ponder whether thousands of tonnes of sewage from the human inhabited households being pumped into the River in order to improve shareholder dividends is going to kill the Boat).