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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 9, 2019 17:11:34 GMT
I am still trying to dry out books and papers soaked while stored in my sister’s garage, and I have not yet dared to check out the Jag, which filled with water to the leather seats. Gilly’s Mini has just been written off, much to her anguish. Depends on the age of the Jag, but if electronic control modules, so things like ABS, engine ecu, air bag computers etc some of which are powered up all the time (galvanic corrosion on the circuit boards) are underwater they are scrap. Good luck, but if the insurance company offers a Wright-off I would accept it. Not insured, has been stored in my sister's garage awaiting a new exhaust system. Battery will have been dead, which might be a good thing? Still has water in the boot, but the boats are taking priority at the moment. The ECU was already compromised, and seems impossible to replace, because this is a 1995 model XJR, and everything after that has a different connector.
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 9, 2019 15:07:52 GMT
Some places, some times, that will hold true, but a large part of the reason why problems have occurred in some places has been the isolation of various ‘areas’ of responsibility between local EA bodies, who do not liase with each other. So one lot would be draining down farmers’ field in the Fens, simultaneously with another lot having to raise main sluices guarding against tides. If they had co-ordinated their efforts, the timing could all have been synchronised and the latest lot of record flooding in the Glen/Welland catchment area, for example, avoided. It is no good having reservoirs to accommodate upper river flows during necessary sluice closures, if the reservoir is full to start with. Local Drainage Board employees living on site would always monitor tide and weather predictions ahead of time, and incrementally drain the system down in good time for sluice closure. Of course, where limits are reached, nothing can be done, but the controlling systems worked as well as could be expected before the EA took over. This year’s unnecessary extreme flooding was higher than any time on record – and not because of unusual circumstances, only because the programmed systems do not ‘think’ sufficiently ahead. Then too, one chap was telling me he was convinced that the recent inundation was in part caused by employees forgetting/not being there in the ‘office’, to turn the clocks back, and that the sluices were closed 3 hours before they needed to be. Now the EA are going overboard, draining down for the entire time between tides, so banks are collapsing due to lack of support, and keeping an eye on boats slipping down the exposed slopes means maintaining a constant vigil. I am still trying to dry out books and papers soaked while stored in my sister’s garage, and I have not yet dared to check out the Jag, which filled with water to the leather seats. Gilly’s Mini has just been written off, much to her anguish. Meanwhile my £300 ‘banger’, a Vauxhall Cavalier, was in slightly higher ground and though getting water in the footwells, was absolutely fine.
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 9, 2019 10:22:33 GMT
The EA have been showing regrettable inexperience in some Lincolnshire areas; relying too much on newly automatic systems replacing on-the-spot Internal Drainage Board employees.
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 8, 2019 22:32:52 GMT
I do have a genuine hatred of Indian call centres, I just cannot grasp what they are saying. I obviously have to use them at times for services I use. I usually explain that I am struggling, and would be grateful if I could speak to someone with better english. This works well on most occasions, but sometimes they put a bloody Scot on. And when you mix an Aussie with an Indian call-centre :-
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 8, 2019 16:44:37 GMT
Sadly, The Brewery Tap is now closed, due to the supposed lack of obvious access from the High Street, since Ballymore fenced it all off. Fullers promise a re-opening in December, with the pub (shudder) 'sympathetically' refurbished. That is really bad news it was one of our all time favourite pubs, well worth a visit every time we passed there. A sympathetic refurbishment means it will be ruined. News just in - taken over by chap next door (thinks he runs a classic car refurbishment business) who has been a patron since his parents were, so hopefully it WILL be truly sympathetic - www.brentfordtw8.com/default.asp?section=info&page=brewerytap002.htmPromises that the old jazz groups will be back.
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 7, 2019 22:42:12 GMT
Only resident lock keepers I can remember by name were Sam and Anna, not at the same time That's probably after the time you mention. Quite a bit after. Anna has long gone now; Sam is still there, but only because he bought the lockside cottage while the resident keeper - he was many years in the higher echelons of London management before being made redundant earlier this year. I cannot remember the name of the chap I was speaking of; I know that he was eventually sacked for some reason, possibly related to his fondness for the Tap. A great pity.
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 7, 2019 21:24:53 GMT
Rough pub locations marked on Ballymore’s CGI of the proposed backdrop to my moorings –
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 7, 2019 21:10:51 GMT
Sadly, The Brewery Tap is now closed, due to the supposed lack of obvious access from the High Street, since Ballymore fenced it all off. Fullers promise a re-opening in December, with the pub (shudder) 'sympathetically' refurbished. That is really bad news it was one of our all time favourite pubs, well worth a visit every time we passed there. A sympathetic refurbishment means it will be ruined. Back in the days when there was a permanently resident BW lock-keeper at the Thames Locks, if you turned up from the Thames out of hours, you could alway trot 'round to the Tap to find him, and he would finish his pint then mosey along to let you through. edit to add: it could cost you an extra pint for him once through, but if you joined in that was no hardship.
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 7, 2019 21:06:21 GMT
The Magpie was still open last time I was in the area. It too had closed down for awhile due to the landlady's disenchantment with the restrictions surrounding the Ballymore redevelopment suttounding them, whereby the rear access has been cut off. It has always had a deserved reputation in the CAMRA guide for the continual turn over of splendid guest beers and ciders, despite a somewhat lacklustre landlady - who nonetheless in my opinion cared for what was most important. Have only been in once since the new management, and honestly wasn't noticing the service, so cannot comment. I was always up for trying out something different each visit. Having an intense interest in the history of Brentford, I was dismayed to notice that the the old 'Boar's Head Yard' street sign alongside the Magpie has recently been removed with Ballymore's hoarding up of the passage. It was one of the last of Brentford's once famous alleyways (or 'yards'), and a pub has been on that corner since before the 17th century. Boar'd Head Yard is marked on the 1635 Syon Park map of the area. Access to the river had been cut off for decades of course, and the only extant route in my time, from the Market Place on the High Street to the water's edge, was Bradshaw's Yard - site of my old boatyard.
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 7, 2019 18:33:29 GMT
I believe you owe Nigel several beers. When you are next passing Brentford, you should pop into The Brewery Tap and open a tab for Nigel. Most kind of you! Sadly, The Brewery Tap is now closed, due to the supposed lack of obvious access from the High Street, since Ballymore fenced it all off. Fullers promise a re-opening in December, with the pub (shudder) 'sympathetically' refurbished.
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 7, 2019 18:20:15 GMT
Maybe there are some more recent acts than BW 1995 that I am unaware of. No. There have been the secondary legislative Orders that transferred much of BW’s existing statutory powers to CaRT, and disposed of IWAC, but no new Acts. Under the terms of the Transfer Order, CaRT have no powers (unlike BW had) to promote their own Acts (only secondary legislation such as byelaws), so any new Act would have to be a public Act promoted by government. Government have rather more on their ‘minds’ currently, to spare any of such resource on new waterways legislation. Besides, CaRT have continued and improved upon their specious justifications for assumption of powers outwith Parliamentary authority, so why would they bother?
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 7, 2019 17:31:47 GMT
It might be apposite - in the context of the present conflict over the nature of differing ‘relevant consents’ and the conditions to which they are allegedly subject - to quote an (edited) analysis of the application of s.43 of the Transport Act 1962, which I posted on CWDF over 3 years ago. This much abused piece of legislation is CaRT’s fall-back source for their professed freedom to set their own conditions for issuing either PBC’s or PBL’s, and to justify refusal or revocation of any relevant consent:
"Context is all, yet is the one thing that most people fail to see when dealing with this bit of legislation in particular. It is surprising, because the very wording of the oft-quoted section demands that it be read subject to the preceding sub-sections and to preceding enabling Acts.
The result of reading (usually elliptically quoted) parts of it, in isolation from the other subsections, is to form a view that this Act confers, for the first time, rights to charge for use by boats of the canals, and to impose conditions on such use. It does no such thing.
From the very beginning, over two centuries ago now, canal companies were granted the right to charge for use by boats of their waterways, and to make conditions for such use. Nothing changed in those respects from the enabling Acts until now. What DID change was the lifting of limitations applicable to the setting of allowable charges and conditions.
None of those charges could ever have applied to the grant of permission for boats to enter the waterways; the canals were all of them subject to the public right of navigation, as were the rivers – for which latter, not even registration was required. It is not that boats were not subject to conditions attached to the exercise of their right – they were, as provided for in primary and secondary legislation. All boats exercising the public right to enter and use the canals, for example, were required by primary legislation to be registered. All such boats whether on canals or rivers, were also required to conform to the conditions of use as set out in the various byelaws. Penalties were set out for breach of these. That still applies, having nothing to do with pleasure boat licences, nor with pleasure boat certificates.
Originally, the canal companies were set fixed levels of charges for the uses they were entitled to charge for [and unless those uses were specified, they were not entitled to charge at all – see Stourbridge v Wheeley & other cases]. Additionally, conditions attached to the services and facilities for which they were entitled to charge were invariably limited by legislation also. An example of the latter is that while the GJCC were entitled to create wharves and commensurate facilities on any offside land they had purchased for the purpose – just as private riparian landowners were – they were not entitled [by contrast with the private owners], to say who could or could not avail themselves of those facilities; they had to be open to all.
The awkwardness of the system meant that new legislation had to be passed every time it was necessary to upgrade the charge levels in line with rising costs. Those rigid price structures and conditions – differing with every one of the multitudinous companies – were modified in a series of subsequent national legislation. Not what could be charged for and conditioned - which remained then as now, subject to express and implied prohibitions - but how and at what level.
The Transport Act 1947 set out a reform applicable to all the nationalised companies within the British Transport Commission, under section 76 headed “Charges Schemes”. This provided that: –
“The Commission shall from time to time prepare, and submit to the Transport Tribunal for confirmation, drafts of schemes (hereafter in this Act referred to as “charges schemes”) for determining, as respects the services and facilities provided by the Commission to which the schemes respectively relate – a) the charges which are to be made by the Commission and b) where it is necessary or expedient to do so, the other terms and conditions which are to be applicable to the provision of those services and facilities, including, in particular, terms and conditions as to the liability of the Commission for loss or damage.”
So the disparate levels of charges under the prior enabling Acts were to be brought under a unified scheme, appropriate to the unified companies under the aegis of the BTC. The new charges and related T&C’s were to be submitted to an independent Tribunal for approval.
In 1958 the BTC’s Charges Scheme was approved by the Tribunal, coming into force on the 1 June 1958. It laid down that –
“4. The Commission may in the case of any inland waterway of the Commission make such charges as may be reasonable – (1) for the use thereof by any ship or boat; (2) for the provision by them of towage thereon; (3) for the provision of port facilities at or in connection with any dock thereon; and (4) for the use of any services and facilities connected with such port facilities . . .”
“5. Any questions as to the reasonableness of any charge made by the Commission under paragraph 4 of this Scheme shall be determined on the application either of the Commission or of the person liable to the charge by the Transport Tribunal to the exclusion of any other Court.”
“6. The Commission may make the use of any of the services and facilities to which this Scheme relates subject to such reasonable terms and conditions (not being provisions as to the amount of any charges) as the Commission may from time to time determine.”
“7. Any questions as to the reasonableness of any term or condition imposed or sought to be imposed by the Commission under paragraph 6 of this Scheme shall be determined by the Transport Tribunal.” [my emphasis]
The difference between the 1958 Scheme and everything which applied previously, was that the rigid and disparate charges levels were abolished in favour of a uniform level of charge across all relevant waterways, and the T&C’s attached to the service/facility charged for, were likewise made uniform. For both charge levels and T&C’s, the only restriction was to be that these were to be “reasonable”; the test for reasonableness determinable by the Transport Tribunal in case of challenge.
What interested parties need to ask then, is wherein lies the difference between the BTC Charges Scheme 1958 and the Transport Act 1962, s.43 on Charges and Facilities?
The 1962 Act [which abolished all Charges Schemes under the 1947 Act] clarified that the new charging regime applied only to the uses chargeable under the enabling Acts, as amended, while removing the burden of reasonableness on the charges and on the related terms and conditions for those chargeable services and facilities.
So s.43 introduced nothing new in terms of what could be charged for and conditioned; it simply removed all restrictions and oversight as previously obtained, such that BW could set charges, and set T&C’s for the chargeable services and facilities, “as they see fit”.
The latter four words form the ONLY point of difference from all that went before.
The 1962 Act, far from giving CaRT open licence to charge as they pleased for whatever they liked and to impose conditions for whatever they liked, on a unilateral basis, is in fact the one bit of legislation that specifically confirms the fact that those charges and conditions could not be made with respect to anything that had not previously been authorised as chargeable.
The licensing of boats on the canals, and the registration of boats on the rivers, was never encompassed within pre-1962 legislation, hence nothing in s.43 could possibly apply to those.
When those became law under later primary legislation, the conditions for issue were laid out – and to start with, nothing more was required for either, other than a paid for application. The PBC’s to begin with were subject to rigid legislated price structures mandated in the BW Act 1971 (as amended), that had conferred the power to demand registration of boats on certain of the river waterways. No conditions were imposable respecting issue of the registration certificate.
By virtue of the BW Act 1974, charges for such registration could not be increased by any greater proportion than that by which equivalent boat licences had been increased, and s.36(3)(b) required that any increase be implemented only after consultation with IWAAC. That subsection remains unrepealed. It is notable that the Transport Act 1962, s.43 did not enter the picture; BW were NOT free to charge "as they see fit" for PBC's, nor could they impose any pre-conditions at all (confirmed by BW when giving evidence before the Select Committe on the 1990 Bill).
Following the establishment of compulsory boat licences on canals 2 years later, and on passage of the BW Act 1983, the fixed prices were abolished and the PBC pegged to a maximum 60% of the Licence for an equivalent vessel. The levels of charges were still, then as now, subject to consultation with the IWAAC (though implementation is problematic since IWAC - as IWAAC had become - was abolished!)
The BW Act 1975 had extended byelaw making powers to enable BW to condition entry onto the canals, resulting in the 1976 byelaws (not applicable to the river waterways), making licensing of boats compulsory. Before that time, pleasure boat licences had been contractual agreements universally applied since the earliest times, to obviate the cumbersome and difficult to apply system of Statutory charging schemes.
The BW Act 1983 further extended byelaw making powers, to include control over construction and equipment of vessels. This was never implemented, and the section was repealed under s.36 and Schedule 3 of the 1995 Act – which substituted the BSSC condition instead. The 1995 Act added the only other two applicable conditions, to which issue of ‘relevant consents’ (to include both PBL's and PBC’s) were to be subject. Those were insurance, and either having a home mooring or (in common parlance) ‘continuous cruising’. The pre-conditions for issue of ‘relevant consents’ are listed in s.17 of the 1995 Act. It ought to be obvious that none of this is conformable to the 1962 Act ‘as they see fit’ freedom, respecting the services and facilities chargeable back then.
For any ‘relevant consent’ then, both pricing and conditioning are subject to the restraints legislated for in those later Acts, quite outside of the 1962 Act provisions – necessarily so, given that ‘relevant consents’ had never, at the time of the 1962 Act, been compulsorily imposable in the first place, hence neither chargeable nor conditionable under the 1962 Act, s.43.
It is regrettable that BW and now CaRT have persisted to this day in falsely considering ‘relevant consents’ to be a contractual matter, and hence covered by s.43 of the 1962 Act. They are not; they are a later imposed statutory requirement, quite separately subject only to the charge levels and conditions as set out in the more modern, applicable relevant legislation that created them."
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 6, 2019 13:30:01 GMT
I have to say, well done C&RT, . . I take back everything I've said about them ! Careful there Tony - that could be taken down in evidence to be used against you.
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 6, 2019 11:05:36 GMT
Has anybody noticed the latest spin on the Toddbrook Reservoir debacle?
A CaRT ecologist explains why draining the reservoir “is actually a good thing”, because it promotes the life-cycle of a rare moss which led to the site first being declared a SSI.
They are committed to preserving this (by keeping the reservoir empty, or by draining down every few years?)
So that’s alright then. Kudos to CaRT.
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Post by NigelMoore on Nov 5, 2019 22:54:05 GMT
I understand that but would make a minor point. The 1983 Act relates to registration only and does not require PBCs to be 60% of the equivalent PBL. It is a maximum. It is not mandatory that BW/C&RT increases license fees and simultaneously increases PBCs/'rivers only licenses' to 60% of the equivalent license. C&RT can increase PBL's and PBC's independently subject to the 60% proviso. Agreed Allan, and it is good to clarify the point – “ the charge payable for the registration of a pleasure boat shall not at any time exceed 60 per centum of the amount which would be payable to the Board for the licensing of such vessel on any inland waterway other than a river waterway referred to in Schedule 1 to the Act of 1971”. But the point is perhaps moot - have you ever known them to exercise their discretion to keep river registrations lower than they need to? I am not suggesting that it has never happened, but . . .
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