Email from cart

[Midnight]

1 minute ago, Victor Vectis said:

But I'm there all alone.

(Well, I m at the moment)

Don't worry MTB will join you shortly

 

[Steilsteven]

5 minutes ago, Psycloud said:

And this is why they are running the consultation - there is no universally fair option that suits everyone so most likely the decisions will be based on majority vote with weighting towards making the budget work (or vice versa).

 

Well I certainly hope that isn't the case, seeing as how the majority of boats are smaller by area. The results will be somewhat skewed in their favour.

Keith

[Psycloud]

Just now, Steilsteven said:

Well I certainly hope that isn't the case, seeing as how the majority of boats are smaller by area. The results will be somewhat skewed in their favour.

Keith

An intrinsic failing of a democracy

[nicknorman]

1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

100% surcharge for shiny boats too would be good... 

 

 

Two points strike me about the pre-payment discount.

Firstly it was introduced in the high inflation days decades ago when 10% was a reasonable reward for prompt payment. I've always been surprised it was not reduced down towards 2.5% as would be reasonably today. 

Secondly when I had a Thames licence and my boat in the marina, and my licence fell due for renewal in 1st Jan each year, I would wait until April to actually buy the licence as that is when I first emerged out onto the Thames. As Nick hints at, CRT will suffer major cashflow problems if they drop the pre-payment discount as there will be no point in buying a license until prompted so to do by being spotted by a CRT spotter. 

And thirdly given CRT don't require us to display a licence these days, there will be no pressure of any sort being brought to bear on the chancers who would never buy a licence if they thought they could get away with it. At the moment the marginal cases still buy a licence in advance to get the 10%. Once that is withdrawn, there is no financial penalty attached to waiting for CRT to force them to buy a licence, and possibly some considerable financial advantage.

Phew, just as well our 7 year old  paintwork is getting pretty shabby!

And it is still a legal requirement to display the licence. It is just that CRT have unofficially said they are not that fussed about it.

[rusty69]

23 minutes ago, Steilsteven said:

I don't understand the logic of boaters being charged by the size of their boat.None of the arguments bear scrutiny.

Keith

 

Perhaps lock/miles per year would be a fairer system 

Or PAYG, insert a fiver at each lock. 

Edited October 13, 2017 by rusty69

[Athy]

9 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

I'll join you in pedants' corner. Athy may join us soon. Mine's a pint.

I ain't coming, but the pint sounds good although it's a bit early for me.

[Steilsteven]

Just now, Psycloud said:

An intrinsic failing of a democracy

But it isn't democracy though is it?

We are not voting but merely giving opinions. I hope that those opinions will be scrutinised by an independent body ( as is supposed to be the case ) and regardless of numbers, the fairest and most logical recommendation will be reached.

Keith

[MtB]

On 13/10/2017 at 10:55, Steilsteven said:

But it isn't democracy though is it?

 

Yes it is.

We live in a 'representative democracy' where you have the right to lobby your MP to have the law changed about something you disagree with. And if your case is good enough and enough other people agree with you, it gets changed. 

Binding referenda on every tiny little issue that crops up (which you seem to be wanting, and confusing this poll with) makes a country ungovernable. 

[nicknorman]

In all seriousness I do think some surcharge for widebeams is fair. One can't share a lock with a wide beam so they take twice as much water as would be the case with 2 narrowboats (sharing the lock). One typically can't breast up to a widebeam without causing an obstruction, at places where moorings are in short supply. They tend to be pretty slow and hold everyone up. And of course in many cases they are offensive to look at. Well, on that last one I suppose it's a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder!

i don't buy the argument about the reduced cruising range - the issue is that they consume more resource (water and space) than a narrowboat, although not twice as much.

And it works both ways - our visit to Bristol floating harbour was great - but expensive. And when the harbourmaster asked for my opinion on our visit, I told him as much. He said that people who visit from lumpy water think it's cheap, people who visit from the ditches think it's expensive (those weren't his exact words!). With hindsight I wish I had said that this is probably because a 59' narrowboat is a fairly normal and mid-priced boat. A 59' yacht is huge, much more expensive and thus if one considers the cost of the mooring fee as a proportion of the approximate cost of the boat, narrowboaters get a raw deal.

The same is applicable to widebeams - as a general principle they are considerably more expensive that a narrowboat of the same length. I take the point about the cruiser of 7'4" but the solution is to charge by area as they do on the Thames. In order to avoid charging fat boats double (which isn't fair either), the formula could be length x width with chargeable width constrained to some maximum such as 9'. 

[Midnight]

15 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Phew, just as well our 7 year old  paintwork is getting pretty shabby!

Does that mean it's 'very fair' our 15 year old tatty paintwork should attract a 50% discount?

[nicknorman]

3 minutes ago, Midnight said:

Does that mean it's 'very fair' our 15 year old tatty paintwork should attract a 50% discount?

No, as a disgrace to the gentrified rosycastley waterways you have to pay a 50% surcharge!

[Mac of Cygnet]

54 minutes ago, Midnight said:

see my previous post Mac - a genuine survey would be severely flawed if it did accept completed forms without an ID.

Edited to add
It's so easy set setup validation that would prevent the form action if no valid ID parameter was present that I wonder if this is a bug or just not important i.e. cosmetic survey

Yes, you obviously know more about it than I (a nod to the parallel pedants' discussion going on here).  So if I completed the form using that link, is there any way of telling whether it has been accepted? (I've already completed my personal survey.)

[Victor Vectis]

55 minutes ago, Machpoint005 said:

I'll join you in pedants' corner. Athy may join us soon. Mine's a pint.

Well hello there!

Now it really is pedants' corner.

[Mac of Cygnet]

18 minutes ago, Victor Vectis said:

Well hello there!

Now it really is pedants' corner.

I might have joined you once, but since reading Oliver Kamm's book Accidence Will Happen (sic), I'm much more laid back.  Being a pedant was so stressful.

[Dave Payne]

I dont understand why CRT want non boaty people to visit the waterways, i dont really see what it brings, they dont spend any money!

They are really pushing this on social media at the minute.

[system 4-50]

My boat is 6' 10" long and 60' wide. I like to drive it sideways.

[BruceinSanity]

1 hour ago, Midnight said:

The system does seem to accept the survey without the ID . If it is accepted as part of the consultation IMO as a web developer it's flawed. However I would doubt the results will be validated further along the line without an ID parameter but then again this is CaRT and is it really a consultation? In a former life as a marketing manager for a LA I was often asked to produce surveys which would provide the answered required.

I've accidentally found another coding flaw. Last night, after reading the front page, I clicked the Save and Continue Later button, instead of Next (I was half way through a Ferret at the time). The next page said that I would be sent a new link to continue, but it didn't show up so I clicked the original email link again and got back to the beginning.

Filled in the survey and, guess what, this morning another link arrived so I've just done a second survey on behalf of SWMBO who joint owns the boat anyway. I agree, proper validation will pick up that two surveys have been done from the same email address but we'll probably never know.

[adam1uk]

38 minutes ago, Dave Payne said:

I dont understand why CRT want non boaty people to visit the waterways, i dont really see what it brings, they dont spend any money!

They are really pushing this on social media at the minute.

Because about a third of CRT's income comes in the form of a government grant from taxation -- so they need to show that people are getting something for their money.  Otherwise the government will say that as it's only boaters who use the canals, it's only boaters who should pay for them.

[cuthound]

14 hours ago, matty40s said:

People living in areas outside of the English canal system(foreigners )will pay a special licence fee approximately double of the normal licence fee.

This is due to the low value of the pound at present. Scotland will be included in this as it is evident from the Sturgeon that the Scottish want to leave the UK even though they didn't in the last referendum.

Problem with a poor exchange rate is tthat CRT don't get approximately twice as many pounds for these licences. 

[alan_fincher]

35 minutes ago, Dave Payne said:

I dont understand why CRT want non boaty people to visit the waterways, i dont really see what it brings, they dont spend any money!

They are really pushing this on social media at the minute.

It is a major requirement of the arrangements under which BW became CRT that the Govermnent grant is doing far more than just heavily subsidising the waterways for boat owners, (whose licensing fees only meet some one third of the total costs).

CRT need to keep producing very strong proof that they are making the waterways an attraction accessible to the public at large, (hence those highly unbelievable stats they put out about visits to the town path!), and without that proof, renewal of the funding arramngements when the current ones run out could be at severe risk.

Note that any "non boaty" person who is a UK tax payer is actually contributing the government grant that CRT needs to survive, and hence also to some extent to your use of the canals.

[Steilsteven]

1 hour ago, Mike the Boilerman said:

 

Yes it is.

We live in a 'representative democracy' where you have the right to lobby your MP to have the law changed about something you disagree with. And if your case is good enough and enough other people agree with you, it gets changed. 

Binding referenda on every tiny little issue that crops up (which you seem to be wanting, and confusing this poll with) makes a country ungovernable. 

It isn't a referendum binding or otherwise, I think you must be getting confused with another thread somewhere.

Keith

1 hour ago, nicknorman said:

In all seriousness I do think some surcharge for widebeams is fair. One can't share a lock with a wide beam so they take twice as much water as would be the case with 2 narrowboats (sharing the lock). One typically can't breast up to a widebeam without causing an obstruction, at places where moorings are in short supply. They tend to be pretty slow and hold everyone up. And of course in many cases they are offensive to look at. Well, on that last one I suppose it's a case of beauty being in the eye of the beholder!

i don't buy the argument about the reduced cruising range - the issue is that they consume more resource (water and space) than a narrowboat, although not twice as much.

And it works both ways - our visit to Bristol floating harbour was great - but expensive. And when the harbourmaster asked for my opinion on our visit, I told him as much. He said that people who visit from lumpy water think it's cheap, people who visit from the ditches think it's expensive (those weren't his exact words!). With hindsight I wish I had said that this is probably because a 59' narrowboat is a fairly normal and mid-priced boat. A 59' yacht is huge, much more expensive and thus if one considers the cost of the mooring fee as a proportion of the approximate cost of the boat, narrowboaters get a raw deal.

The same is applicable to widebeams - as a general principle they are considerably more expensive that a narrowboat of the same length. I take the point about the cruiser of 7'4" but the solution is to charge by area as they do on the Thames. In order to avoid charging fat boats double (which isn't fair either), the formula could be length x width with chargeable width constrained to some maximum such as 9'. 

Of course narrow boats ALWAYS wait for another boat to share a broad lock with them.I look forward to you hanging on to that weak justification when the  Cotswolds Canals are finally restored. 

You are also adding moorings into the mix, a different subject altogether.

Cost of a vessel has no bearing on licence fees and if it did the only fair way would be to charge by valuation.

As I've said many times in the past, we all pay a contribution towards the upkeep of the waterways, we pay this whether our boat moves or not so it isn't a cruising licence.

There is no demonstrable difference in cost to the navigation authority between one vessel or another so no justification for one to subsidise the other.

Keith

[cuthound]

I agree that the 10% early payment discount is probably too high in these days of low inflation.

I commented that if it is reduced the additional income should be ringfenced tp pay for additional maintence and improvements to the navigation.

[nicknorman]

5 minutes ago, Steilsteven said:

It isn't a referendum binding or otherwise, I think you must be getting confused with another thread somewhere.

Keith

Of course narrow boats ALWAYS wait for another boat to share a broad lock with them.I look forward to you hanging on to that weak justification when the  Cotswolds Canals are finally restored. 

You are also adding moorings into the mix, a different subject altogether.

Cost of a vessel has no bearing on licence fees and if it did the only fair way would be to charge by valuation.

As I've said many times in the past, we all pay a contribution towards the upkeep of the waterways, we pay this whether our boat moves or not so it isn't a cruising licence.

There is no demonstrable difference in cost to the navigation authority between one vessel or another so no justification for one to subsidise the other.

Keith

You are right in that quite often, narrow boats don't share wide locks especially at quiet times. But sometimes they do. Whereas wide beams can never do so. Thus, as I said, a wide beam will probably use more water resource than the equivalent narrowboat undergoing the same journey, but probably not twice as much.

Your other arguments equally apply to using length as a criteria, and yet you don't seem to be against that or are not proposing one fixed licence cost regardless of length. Why is that?

[Naughty Cal]

5 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

You are right in that quite often, narrow boats don't share wide locks especially at quiet times. But sometimes they do. Whereas wide beams can never do so. Thus, as I said, a wide beam will probably use more water resource than the equivalent narrowboat undergoing the same journey, but probably not twice as much.

Your other arguments equally apply to using length as a criteria, and yet you don't seem to be against that or are not proposing one fixed licence cost regardless of length. Why is that?

If I can come back to the every so slightly wider beam GRP cruiser senario again, then several of these boats can share one lock, usually more then the two narrowboats in your scenario. Yet under the new proposals these boats will be charged an extra 25% or 50% of their current fee. Using your argument surely their fees should be less as they can fit more boats in per lock thus using less water per boat?

[bigcol]

13 minutes ago, cuthound said:

I agree that the 10% early payment discount is probably too high in these days of low inflation.

I commented that if it is reduced the additional income should be ringfenced tp pay for additional maintence and improvements to the navigation.

Lol. Can you really think they would do that?

may be ring fenced for expenses lol.

seriously I don’t believe CRT could ring fence any money!

what they need is like the National health, make the money they do have go further

at the moment it’s making large profits for ltd and Plc companies.