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"Permanent Mooring"


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22 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

But - would an act of 1960 (?) which C&RT claims to give them the right to create whatever T&Cs they require, over-rule an act of 1995 which states the only 3 criteria necessary to obtain (and maintain) a licence.

The last paragraph of my previous post above answers that to the contrary, does it not? Even if CaRT had been correct that conditioning of the licence was potentially possible by reference to s.43 of the 1962 Act, s.17(3) of the 1995 Act has precluded reliance on that, with the sole exception being the provisions of the 1971 Act as amended, which is the only enactment prior to 1995 relating to conditioning a consent; anything prior to 1971 [notably that of 1962 which makes no reference to consents at all, and could not have done so by reason of the then universal PRN’s] however interpreted, is specifically precluded from being used as a reason to refuse a relevant consent.

Even without s.17(3), the later Act would have the effect of an implied repeal [supposing CaRT's interpretation of s.43 was correct], by reason of the former being incompatible with the latter.

It is worth repeating the view of the Transport Ministry's legal view in 1970, that s.43 powers could not apply to boat licences anyway.

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2 hours ago, Muddy Ditch Rich said:

The question is now, how are the T&C s going to be challenged in court ?

 

Any challenge to either a particular objectionable condition, or refusal/revocation of a licence for breach of a non-s.17 condition, or for refusal to sign to agreement to them, would have to follow relevant action on CaRT’s part.

Any individual placed in that position could do as advised by the Pierret judge and bring a Judicial Review, or as appropriate, file their own Claim [or Counter-Claim if CaRT got in first]. I am personally very cynical about Judicial Reviews in the Admin. Court; the relationship between government and court in that division is too cosy for comfort, for all the occasional successes in matters that do not involve strong criticism of an authority [a friend of mine is frequently successful with Judicial Reviews over Planning decisions].

It needs to be remembered though – just because you are right, does not mean that you will win! I would certainly advise against anybody deliberately provoking a situation simply in order to challenge CaRT’s stance on this issue. I venture to suggest that nobody knows better than I, the perils of relying on the courts to make decisions against the authority. It is a rare breed of judge who is prepared to do so, at any level; they exist, but you cannot count on getting one of them.

Any potential litigant needs to think very long and hard before making a grab for that tiger’s tail; you can be assured that you will need to hang on grimly for years on end, and need to have the stomach and resources for the fight. It should not be that way, but reality must be faced. Most boaters lick their wounds after the first [almost inevitable] County Court finding against them, and give up fighting in the legal arena there and then, whether supported by Legal Aid lawyers or not.

We really could do with some more Judge Pugsley's!

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3 hours ago, Muddy Ditch Rich said:

The question is now, how are the T&C s going to be challenged in court ?

 

Without a specific instance of an alleged 'wrong' to be examined by the Court, Judicial Review is a non-starter. My preference would be to wear C&RT down via, as far as is achievable, a concerted campaign of refusal to agree to the T&C's when buying a Licence or a PBC. They would have the straight choice of either giving up trying to impose their ultra vires T&C's as a condition of issuing a PBL or a PBC, or to resort to dubious legal proceedings which the boater has it in his/her power to sabotage at will. Repeated with sufficient regularity by a number of boaters, and resulting in every one of the ensuing County Court Part 8 Claims degenerating into a costly exercise in futility they were forced to discontinue, even Parry's happy band of compulsive litigators would, in the end, be obliged to give up.

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4 minutes ago, PhilAtterley said:

Without a specific instance of an alleged 'wrong' to be examined by the Court, Judicial Review is a non-starter. My preference would be to wear C&RT down via, as far as is achievable, a concerted campaign of refusal to agree to the T&C's when buying a Licence or a PBC. They would have the straight choice of either giving up trying to impose their ultra vires T&C's as a condition of issuing a PBL or a PBC, or to resort to dubious legal proceedings which the boater has it in his/her power to sabotage at will. Repeated with sufficient regularity by a number of boaters, and resulting in every one of the ensuing County Court Part 8 Claims degenerating into a costly exercise in futility they were forced to discontinue, even Parry's happy band of compulsive litigators would, in the end, be obliged to give up.

Are you confident that a majority of narrow boat owners would do this?

I'm not even convinced a majority would object to CaRT's objectives. 

The problem (for most boaters and for CaRT) is their limited means to manage the canals for the benefit of all boaters (i.e. excluding their other responsibilities to other canal users).  I think it would be a lot more effective to work towards refining their objectives and changing the means they have to achieve them.  I'd expect CaRT to become a lot easier to deal with if they had better legislation and efficient tools for "tactrical enforcement" (as opposed to their heavy-handed "strategic" methods that most people dislike).

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It's all very entertaining to bad-mouth CRT with a lot of legalistic twaddle about what they do and don't have the right to do, but who do you all want CRT to satisfy?

The pleasure boaters who want to use their boat for holidays and days out? The genuine continuous cruisers who travel the whole network as a lifestyle choice, and really don't have a fixed base? Those who choose to live permanently on a boat in a fixed location, on a residential mooring?

or those who are clearly extracting the Michael and the urine in equal measure; living in what are basically floating squats, or renting boats out for residential occupation but pretending that they are "pleasure boats" - and moving them the minimal stipulated distance every two weeks just so that they can claim they are continuous cruisers.

If you don't like CRT imposing rules, who should?

If nobody, are you happy with every town and city on a canal having miles of permanently moored residential boats; some tidy, some neglected and some piled high with rotting logs, bits of dismantled domestic appliances and all the other debris that accumulates when people don't realise you can't live on a boat and have lots of "stuff"?

Personally, I'd quite like to be able to visit some of our major cities and find moorings where I could stay for a few days, then go away again. If that means CRT have designated visitor moorings which they police vigorously for overstaying,well so be it.

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15 minutes ago, Gordias said:

Are you confident that a majority of narrow boat owners would do this?

I'm not even convinced a majority would object to CaRT's objectives. 

The problem (for most boaters and for CaRT) is their limited means to manage the canals for the benefit of all boaters (i.e. excluding their other responsibilities to other canal users).  I think it would be a lot more effective to work towards refining their objectives and changing the means they have to achieve them.  I'd expect CaRT to become a lot easier to deal with if they had better legislation and efficient tools for "tactrical enforcement" (as opposed to their heavy-handed "strategic" methods that most people dislike).

No, I think that very few have the necessary resolve to stand up to the bullies who are behind C&RT's deplorable conduct, . . .  and it is NOT their 'objectives' I have very much quarrel with, it's their methods !

As for them being easier to deal with if they had "better legislation", . . . I really don't think that even warrants an answer !

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10 minutes ago, DRP said:

It's all very entertaining to bad-mouth CRT with a lot of legalistic twaddle about what they do and don't have the right to do, but who do you all want CRT to satisfy?

The pleasure boaters who want to use their boat for holidays and days out? The genuine continuous cruisers who travel the whole network as a lifestyle choice, and really don't have a fixed base? Those who choose to live permanently on a boat in a fixed location, on a residential mooring?

or those who are clearly extracting the Michael and the urine in equal measure; living in what are basically floating squats, or renting boats out for residential occupation but pretending that they are "pleasure boats" - and moving them the minimal stipulated distance every two weeks just so that they can claim they are continuous cruisers.

If you don't like CRT imposing rules, who should?

If nobody, are you happy with every town and city on a canal having miles of permanently moored residential boats; some tidy, some neglected and some piled high with rotting logs, bits of dismantled domestic appliances and all the other debris that accumulates when people don't realise you can't live on a boat and have lots of "stuff"?

Personally, I'd quite like to be able to visit some of our major cities and find moorings where I could stay for a few days, then go away again. If that means CRT have designated visitor moorings which they police vigorously for overstaying,well so be it.

Take a few deep breaths, . . . then read post # 177.

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23 minutes ago, PhilAtterley said:

Take a few deep breaths, . . . then read post # 177.

I have done and can't really see the relevance.

Post #167 mentions that CRT have no obligation to provide visitor moorings. I'm suggesting that they should and that they should police them so that those of us who want to use our boats to visit new places can do.

I think I was expressing the same general idea that Gordias did (more politely than I did).

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38 minutes ago, DRP said:

I have done and can't really see the relevance.

Post #167 mentions that CRT have no obligation to provide visitor moorings. I'm suggesting that they should and that they should police them so that those of us who want to use our boats to visit new places can do.

I think I was expressing the same general idea that Gordias did (more politely than I did).

So are you suggesting that boats should only moor at visitor moorings?

Keith

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1 hour ago, DRP said:

It's all very entertaining to bad-mouth CRT with a lot of legalistic twaddle about what they do and don't have the right to do, but who do you all want CRT to satisfy?

The pleasure boaters who want to use their boat for holidays and days out? The genuine continuous cruisers who travel the whole network as a lifestyle choice, and really don't have a fixed base? Those who choose to live permanently on a boat in a fixed location, on a residential mooring?

or those who are clearly extracting the Michael and the urine in equal measure; living in what are basically floating squats, or renting boats out for residential occupation but pretending that they are "pleasure boats" - and moving them the minimal stipulated distance every two weeks just so that they can claim they are continuous cruisers.

If you don't like CRT imposing rules, who should?

If nobody, are you happy with every town and city on a canal having miles of permanently moored residential boats; some tidy, some neglected and some piled high with rotting logs, bits of dismantled domestic appliances and all the other debris that accumulates when people don't realise you can't live on a boat and have lots of "stuff"?

Personally, I'd quite like to be able to visit some of our major cities and find moorings where I could stay for a few days, then go away again. If that means CRT have designated visitor moorings which they police vigorously for overstaying,well so be it.

Nothing in that post makes any sense, its just an emotional outburst.

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2 hours ago, Gordias said:

  I think it would be a lot more effective to work towards refining their objectives and changing the means they have to achieve them.  I'd expect CaRT to become a lot easier to deal with if they had better legislation and efficient tools for "tactrical enforcement" (as opposed to their heavy-handed "strategic" methods that most people dislike).

What problems do you see with the means CaRT currently have, Gordias? The EA have much the same legislative ‘means’ as do CaRT, and find them efficient tools for regulation [although it has to be admitted that at times they bypass them also].

If you read CaRT’s Amended Defence in the Ravenscroft case, you will find a comprehensive list of all the reasons CaRT allegedly believe the prescribed tools for enforcement to be useless, yet as was pointed out at trial by reference to the EA published statistics of enforcement, the EA choose [as respects boat registrations anyway] the same tools as CaRT have but dismiss as inadequate.

Discussion of the two opposite approaches with the legal officer and CEO of the Middle Level Commissioners had them evincing perplexity that CaRT make the choices they do – not for any ‘moral’ reasons, but on purely practical and economic grounds.

My own position is that CaRT do not need ‘better’ legislation; they need better management personnel, with a fresh new ethos, prepared to honour better relations with their clientele and mission statements, in deeds rather than words alone, applying their existing legislation for the purposes it was designed for. It is purely a question of choice.

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12 hours ago, NigelMoore said:

What problems do you see with the means CaRT currently have, Gordias? The EA have much the same legislative ‘means’ as do CaRT, and find them efficient tools for regulation [although it has to be admitted that at times they bypass them also].

If you read CaRT’s Amended Defence in the Ravenscroft case, you will find a comprehensive list of all the reasons CaRT allegedly believe the prescribed tools for enforcement to be useless, yet as was pointed out at trial by reference to the EA published statistics of enforcement, the EA choose [as respects boat registrations anyway] the same tools as CaRT have but dismiss as inadequate.

Discussion of the two opposite approaches with the legal officer and CEO of the Middle Level Commissioners had them evincing perplexity that CaRT make the choices they do – not for any ‘moral’ reasons, but on purely practical and economic grounds.

My own position is that CaRT do not need ‘better’ legislation; they need better management personnel, with a fresh new ethos, prepared to honour better relations with their clientele and mission statements, in deeds rather than words alone, applying their existing legislation for the purposes it was designed for. It is purely a question of choice.

Just a limited answer, because I'd rather see this kind of discussion starting from the other direction - that is, a topic where the forum looks for a list of reasonable rules and "enforcement capabilities" for CaRT that would work for everyone.

ETA: This is deliberately "mooring duration" centric, because it's my understanding the the vast majority of the uses of the "section 8" enforcement actions are due to what CaRT sees as mooring issues.  I'm not trying to address everything CaRT could reasonably manage and/or enforce.

 

Byelaws: Note: my source is: http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/media/documents/foi/legal/BW_General_Canal_Bye-laws.pdf  If there are more please give me a link and I'll read the others too.

  • As far as I can see the byelaws contain nothing about mooring duration
  • There are certainly byelaws regarding licensing, but that leads to the enforcement problem ...

Difficulties and cost of enforcement of byelaws

  • The byelaws themselves provide no other penalty than small fines
  • The byelaws mention "repeat offenses" but of course this doesn't apply to boaters who choose not to follow CaRT guidelines for mooring durations, since there is no byelaw covering that
  • The maximum fine is £100.  Perhaps due to an oversight, the cost for a "continuing offense" is only an additional £2 per day
  • CaRT don't have the right to directly impose fines (the "Parking Ticket" model), so they would have significant "internal" enforcement costs (staff, administration) - probably the same or a litle more than their current  non-legal enforcement costs
  • CaRT don't get the money from fines, so there is no additional income

 

  • Note 1: I don't know if the legal costs to CaRT of enforcing each case of byelaw infraction would be the same as their current average costs for e.g. a "section 8" or significantly less.  I'd appreciate some data if you have it
  • Note 2: The current approach includes a deterrent effect (legal costs, loss of boat, costs of boat removal) that a £100 fine might not, so the economic calculation would have to consider both cost (including administrative and field enforcement staff) and frequency (considering the current "terror factor")
  • Note 3: I haven't factored in the possible deterrent effect of a conviction for a byelaw infraction, but of course that would have to be considered beside the current financial risk (the "terror factor"). 

 

I don't like CaRT's current approach.  But the I think the real questions are different:

  1. Should CaRT control mooring times?
  2. If so, what's the most effective means of doing so?

My personal answer to (1) is "yes", and that includes a wish that boats with a permanent mooring should be "bona fide used for navigation" when not at their mooring, and hence subject to the same restrictions as boats without a permanent mooring.  I'm not claiming that CaRT's current approach is provably the best answer to (2), and it's not what I would have done.  But I think I understand why they chose it. 

FWIW I think the whole issue was caused by the BW guy who's named in the 1990 Select Committee you linked for me a few days ago.  BW seems to have had no idea of what was needed, or perhaps just didn't care.

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14 hours ago, Steilsteven said:

So are you suggesting that boats should only moor at visitor moorings?

Keith

No. I am suggesting that designated visitor moorings should be kept available for those who are visitors.

13 hours ago, Muddy Ditch Rich said:

Nothing in that post makes any sense, its just an emotional outburst.

Makes sense to several others. It's difficult, this reading thing, but it gets easier the more you do it.

20 minutes ago, Gordias said:

Just a limited answer, because I'd rather see this kind of discussion starting from the other direction - that is, a topic where the forum looks for a list of reasonable rules and "enforcement capabilities" for CaRT that would work for everyone.

ETA: This is deliberately "mooring duration" centric, because it's my understanding the the vast majority of the uses of the "section 8" enforcement actions are due to what CaRT sees as mooring issues.  I'm not trying to address everything CaRT could reasonably manage and/or enforce.

 

Byelaws: Note: my source is: http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/media/documents/foi/legal/BW_General_Canal_Bye-laws.pdf  If there are more please give me a link and I'll read the others too.

  • As far as I can see the byelaws contain nothing about mooring duration
  • There are certainly byelaws regarding licensing, but that leads to the enforcement problem ...

Difficulties and cost of enforcement of byelaws

  • The byelaws themselves provide no other penalty than small fines
  • The byelaws mention "repeat offenses" but of course this doesn't apply to boaters who choose not to follow CaRT guidelines for mooring durations, since there is no byelaw covering that
  • The maximum fine is £100.  Perhaps due to an oversight, the cost for a "continuing offense" is only an additional £2 per day
  • CaRT don't have the right to directly impose fines (the "Parking Ticket" model), so they would have significant "internal" enforcement costs (staff, administration) - probably the same or a litle more than their current  non-legal enforcement costs
  • CaRT don't get the money from fines, so there is no additional income

 

  • Note 1: I don't know if the legal costs to CaRT of enforcing each case of byelaw infraction would be the same as their current average costs for e.g. a "section 8" or significantly less.  I'd appreciate some data if you have it
  • Note 2: The current approach includes a deterrent effect (legal costs, loss of boat, costs of boat removal) that a £100 fine might not, so the economic calculation would have to consider both cost (including administrative and field enforcement staff) and frequency (considering the current "terror factor")
  • Note 3: I haven't factored in the possible deterrent effect of a conviction for a byelaw infraction, but of course that would have to be considered beside the current financial risk (the "terror factor"). 

 

I don't like CaRT's current approach.  But the I think the real questions are different:

  1. Should CaRT control mooring times?
  2. If so, what's the most effective means of doing so?

My personal answer to (1) is "yes", and that includes a wish that boats with a permanent mooring should be "bona fide used for navigation" when not at their mooring, and hence subject to the same restrictions as boats without a permanent mooring.  I'm not claiming that CaRT's current approach is provably the best answer to (2), and it's not what I would have done.  But I think I understand why they chose it. 

FWIW I think the whole issue was caused by the BW guy who's named in the 1990 Select Committee you linked for me a few days ago.  BW seems to have had no idea of what was needed, or perhaps just didn't care.

Hooray! Sense and reason.

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5 minutes ago, Steilsteven said:

But everyone is a visitor.

Keith

Depending on your point of view, you could argue that we're all visitors, and in three score years and ten most of us will be gone.

But in the context of "visitor moorings", aren't we thinking of a shorter timescale?

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3 minutes ago, DRP said:

Depending on your point of view, you could argue that we're all visitors, and in three score years and ten most of us will be gone.

But in the context of "visitor moorings", aren't we thinking of a shorter timescale?

Very amusing but you fail to explain who these visitors are that the visitor moorings are being kept available for if they aren't everyone who holds a CRT licence.

Keith

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2 minutes ago, Steilsteven said:

Very amusing but you fail to explain who these visitors are that the visitor moorings are being kept available for if they aren't everyone who holds a CRT licence.

Keith

OK.

You keep your boat on a mooring where you pay mooring fees. You boat off for your holidays and decide to visit a town (doesn't matter which one). You have a look round, go to a pub,have a meal, stay for a day or two then boat away. You're a visitor.

You boat to a town . You tie your boat up on visitor moorings.You then lock it up and leave it there for weeks on end.You might even live on it there while you commute to work; or rent it out to someone else to live on. You're not a visitor. You're a p**s artist, even if you have got a CRT licence and a "permanent" mooring several hundred miles away that you "share" with several other people.

Thirty years ago, when the numbers of boats were a fraction of what they are now, the canals could be a lovely refuge from the world of rules and regulations. Sadly, they can't now, because more boats means more people; and more people means more who will take advantage at the expense of everyone else.

Just as a real-life example. We recently visited Brentford, taking a boat up the Thames, and having missed the tide had to wait until next day. In a couple of hundred yards of visitor moorings, the only spaces were a portage pontoon for canoes and the water/pump out point. Of the several dozen boats moored, only two or three had people on them. No-one else was waiting for the tide (as we noted next day), and many of the boats had been there long enough to get a good covering of algae and general crud.

You could argue that the owners had just gone sightseeing, or perhaps had decided to stay at the Holiday Inn to have a nice bath and a comfortable bed. But you wouldn't really believe that, would you?

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50 minutes ago, DRP said:

 

You could argue that the owners had just gone sightseeing, or perhaps had decided to stay at the Holiday Inn to have a nice bath and a comfortable bed. But you wouldn't really believe that, would you?

Hell no!!!! The holday in beds are crap :P

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1 hour ago, DRP said:

OK.

You keep your boat on a mooring where you pay mooring fees. You boat off for your holidays and decide to visit a town (doesn't matter which one). You have a look round, go to a pub,have a meal, stay for a day or two then boat away. You're a visitor.

You boat to a town . You tie your boat up on visitor moorings.You then lock it up and leave it there for weeks on end.You might even live on it there while you commute to work; or rent it out to someone else to live on. You're not a visitor. You're a p**s artist, even if you have got a CRT licence and a "permanent" mooring several hundred miles away that you "share" with several other people.

Thirty years ago, when the numbers of boats were a fraction of what they are now, the canals could be a lovely refuge from the world of rules and regulations. Sadly, they can't now, because more boats means more people; and more people means more who will take advantage at the expense of everyone else.

Just as a real-life example. We recently visited Brentford, taking a boat up the Thames, and having missed the tide had to wait until next day. In a couple of hundred yards of visitor moorings, the only spaces were a portage pontoon for canoes and the water/pump out point. Of the several dozen boats moored, only two or three had people on them. No-one else was waiting for the tide (as we noted next day), and many of the boats had been there long enough to get a good covering of algae and general crud.

You could argue that the owners had just gone sightseeing, or perhaps had decided to stay at the Holiday Inn to have a nice bath and a comfortable bed. But you wouldn't really believe that, would you?

You have invented what you think other boat owners are doing, somehow " algae " proves they have not moved, and only grows in Brentford, you moored overnight but then claim no one was aboard some other boats for a longer term, something which you couldn't possibly have known. You criticise others for using the visitor mooring at Brentford which is in no way reserved for anyone waiting to transit the locks, if you find out the tides before arriving you don't need to wait. Many people leave their boat to visit friends and family usually finding a safe and secure mooring before they do so, like Brentford basin for instance.

You are making up evidence to justify your argument, which seems to be heading towards allowing CaRT to ignore or break the law if the end justifies the means. You must be in the IWA ?

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4 hours ago, Gordias said:

Byelaws: Note: my source is: http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/media/documents/foi/legal/BW_General_Canal_Bye-laws.pdf  If there are more please give me a link and I'll read the others too.

  • As far as I can see the byelaws contain nothing about mooring duration

There are other byelaws Gordias, but specific to certain waterways only, so not germane to this discussion. You are correct: there are no byelaws referencing mooring duration, but there is No. 32 respecting obstruction of towing [which any moored boat makes difficult] and there are both the 1983 Act clause concerning obstruction, and the 1995 Act clause making dangerous obstruction a very expensive offence. The 1995 Act s.18(1) provides that obstruction renders a boat a relevant craft for the purposes of s.8 [which seems rather redundant in view of the fact that s.8 already so said].

BW successfully argued once at least [in the Birmingham County Court in 2001], that overstaying at designated visitor moorings comprised obstruction, having written to the overstaying boat owner on a designated 24 hour visitor mooring: “If you fail to do so [leave the mooring immediately] I will use s.8(5) of the British Waterways Act 1983 to move your boat to prevent it causing an obstruction to the mooring.”

Leaving aside any argument over the ability to so designate short mooring times, this is a straightforward and appropriate response to the situation. They did in fact physically move the boat off the mooring [twice], and part of Mr Taylor’s claim was that there were not entitled to do this. If the time limit was lawful, then he was wrong; they were perfectly entitled to do this. It would follow that certainly any stay beyond 14 days would [absent reasonable justification] be an unlawful obstruction that could be dealt with as BW did do with Mr Taylor – simply move him off. They do not even need to give notice, though they did do so [sensibly].

The judge’s comments were: “I have to consider whether it was an obstruction. Subsection (5) allows the Board to remove a craft without notice if it is an obstruction. That subsection does not say “obstruction to navigation”. The Board say that it was an obstruction to people who wanted to use or might want to use those particular moorings. Because the wording in the subsection is not limited to obstruction to navigation, I construe it as meaning an obstruction to any person who was lawfully wanting to use the inland waterway. Therefore, if it amounted to an obstruction to moorings, my finding is that the Board would have been entitled to exercise that power and remove it without notice.

The only downside so far as BW were concerned, was his finding that they could not charge for the cost of moving him off. So long as a boat is not creating a danger, then no financial penalty attends the obstruction under either the 1983 or the 1995 Acts.

If I were in CaRT’s shoes, faced with a persistent offender, then I think I would apply for a court injunction forbidding repeat of the offence, on pain of contempt of court and such fines as the court in its discretion imposed. A potentially viable alternative would be [using the above judgment to establish the principle of overstaying equating to obstruction] prosecuting for a byelaw 32 offence.

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1 hour ago, Muddy Ditch Rich said:

You have invented what you think other boat owners are doing, somehow " algae " proves they have not moved, and only grows in Brentford, you moored overnight but then claim no one was aboard some other boats for a longer term, something which you couldn't possibly have known. You criticise others for using the visitor mooring at Brentford which is in no way reserved for anyone waiting to transit the locks, if you find out the tides before arriving you don't need to wait. Many people leave their boat to visit friends and family usually finding a safe and secure mooring before they do so, like Brentford basin for instance.

You are making up evidence to justify your argument, which seems to be heading towards allowing CaRT to ignore or break the law if the end justifies the means. You must be in the IWA ?

Bang on!

Keith

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4 hours ago, Gordias said:

 

  • There are certainly byelaws regarding licensing, but that leads to the enforcement problem ...

 

Here, I do not see the problem. Prosecutions are routinely brought against unregistered boats by the EA, using the same powers as BW/CaRT. Their success rate over the years since their 2010 order to date, is 259 successful prosecutions out of a total 324 [38 cases were withdrawn because it was found that boat was registered after all, or there was a plea bargain, mistaken filing, or no evidence, while 27 cases resulted in quashing or a not guilty verdict]. Fines ranged from £50 to £2,000.

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