Fund British waterways campaign

Here's the old guff complete. The usual agenda.
Whoever is running the waterways no one is going to allow free long term moorings in that there Londonland.

NBTA and Fund Britain’s Waterways campaign
March 9, 2024 Marcus Trower
When, in the wake of DEFRA’s decision to reduce the grant to the Canal & River Trust (CRT), several boaters’ groups and other stakeholders set up the Fund Britain’s Waterways campaign, the NBTA politely declined the invitation to join the campaign.

So, don’t we think that the waterways should be properly funded? Of course we do. Our issue with the campaign is that its main thrust is to maintain and increase funding to CRT. For us that poses two problems.

Firstly, CRT has demonstrated since its formation that it is financially incompetent. In its attempts to raise money from the public it has lost millions more than it raised. It wastes money on corporate identity on the towpaths while the system decays around it, and on hare-brained schemes such as the River Lea’s Water Safety Zones, which have cost it over a quarter of a million pounds and are a total failure.

Secondly, CRT policies seek to marginalise boaters without a home mooring at every turn. Whether it is the heavy handed attempts at enforcement, the changes in mooring rules to push itinerant boaters away from town centres or the monetisation of the towpath, it is boaters without a home mooring who suffer at the hands of CRT time and again. And now CRT wants to charge us more for our boat licences while implicitly blaming us for its financial woes; financial woes it will do anything to deflect the blame for from its true source – itself.

Despite paying lip service to the vitality we bring to the waterways, the fact is that CRT wishes we didn’t exist; and is doing what it can to make that wish come true. So campaign for the government to prop up CRT if you want, Fund Britain’s Waterways, but we are not interested in campaigning for our own demise.

Mr Stabby oops forgot to paste the quote.

I suppose it’s an age thing really. After you get past a certain age you lose the will to resist the negative influences of authority and you just conform to the normality for an easy life. I expect it just grinds people down in the end. I find it difficult to believe the great acid chemist that used to hang out with hawkwind is now a gone straight conformist. But then I suppose it’s just fantasy and make believe. He same as he was in the sas and another member is in the secret service.🙃 Thank goodness for the fighting spirit of the youth, ready to question and hold to account overbearing tendencies of authority that seem to be prevalent nowadays.

I think it's just that as you gain life experience, you learn which skirmishes to join and which to avoid. Although having said that, even in my 20s I never had the "rebel without a clue" mentality of many of my peers.

Possibly, as you are getting older you are turning into Tony Dunkley? 

Well, it's more that I see nothing to object to in campaigning to persuade Government to maintain and increase DEFRA funding. It's the withdrawal of this funding that is bringing about the licence cost increases.

I'm not exactly sure that supporting continued Government support for the waterways can be described as a right-wing concept to be honest. I'd say that politically, it's neutral.

The NBTA cite "heavy-handed enforcement" by CRT but anyone who has ever had to deal with DVSA/VOSA/HMRC enforcement will confirm that on enforcement matters, CRT are absolute pussycats. Didn't Dunkley boast that it took him three years to goad CRT into taking enforcement action against him? Try operating an unlicensed HGV with no insurance or MOT and see how long it takes before it's taken away from you.

I'm also unsure about "the changes in mooring rules to push itinerant boaters away from town centres". The whole point of being itinerant is that you move from place to place, and continuous cruisers have just as much right to access town centres as anyone with a home mooring.

There Is an interesting case going on on the River.

A load of Boats have squatted unregistered land beside the River near Molesey. In court the judge has acknowledged that the Environment Agency, as successors to the Thames Conservancy/Thames Water/National Rivers Authority have title to the riverbed. This is due to a previous conveyance of the riverbed below Staines upon Thames from the crown to the Thames Conservancy.

So the EA can in theory get the Boats off but the judge did point out that anyone with a Thames registration, including the Boats which have been there for a decade, would be able to stop for 24 hours but that they did not have long term mooring rights.

It is interesting because if someone remains in place on a mooring which is convenient for pubs and shops they are denying the other users access to the amenity.

So the NBTA seem to be arguing they have a right to occupy communal space more than a leisure boater.

Which is of course the whole reason for time-limited mooring. Perhaps an argument could be made for relaxing the 14-day rule in areas where this would not inconvenience other waterways users, although of course such places are by definition not in locations where people wish to base themselves. People see more employment opportunities in London and so that is where they are going to moor.