Bridgewater Canal claim back your toll fees

Maybe or maybe they are just using the information, because that's all it was.

I don't like bully's and I don't like thieves. And Peel Holdings are both. Not only with the Bridgewater but in everything they do and everything they stand for. They care about 2 things. Money and land, nothing else. And they'd sell each other down the river for a pat on the head from Whitaker so they couldn't give a tuppenny feck for anyone else.

The boaters that have been preyed on intimidated, harassed and put in real physical danger. Are the most vulnerable and least able to defend themselves. Most of who couldn't open a laptop or turn a computer on, never mind find a newsgroup.

Sounds to me like you'd be better off in the other place? 

That doesn't really follow: The fact that the schedule of charges in the 1894 Act doesn't apply to pleasure boats doesn't mean that pleasure boats can't be charged under other legislation. (of which there is LOTS!)  

Heaven forbid Rog

from reading many a thread about sonny.

I asked the hire people last time what would happen if the boat had already been on the bw in the previous month.

They said they automatically get charged for a licence if the boat is spotted twice in a month.

I wonder whether you may not be slightly missing the point? Of course there must be something in a specific enactment; it is the absence within any such enactment of any provision for charges that matters.

The wording is indeed similar to s.43 of the 1962 Transport Act, and the same principle applies – unless one of the many specific prior enactments expressly empowers the making of a charge relating to pleasure boats, then any such charge is prohibited. Stourbridge v Wheeley et al applies.: "‘The canal having been made under the provisions of an Act of Parliament, the rights of the plaintiffs are derived entirely from that Act. This, like many other cases, is a bargain between a company of adventurers and the public, the terms of which are expressed in the statute; and the rule of construction in all such cases is now fully established to be this, – that ambiguity in the terms of the contract must operate against the adventurers, and in favour of the public; and the plaintiffs can claim nothing which is not clearly given to them by the Act.’

Perhaps one of the Acts does provide for pleasure boat charges, but unless it does, the effect of the 2012 Order is the continued prohibition of such charges. Not having read through all of them, I am in no position to say what the case is, but erivers has listed all such applicable enactments elsewhere, and claims to have found no such provision.


The only references to pleasure boat charges on the Bridgewater that I have read, expressly provide for freedom from charges, which rather emphasises the impact of section 7(3).


The serious caveat here of course, is that if it came before the judiciary in their present frame of mind, they would doubtless be eager to demonstrate the extent of their growing freedom of discretion, and apply that in the cause of promoting private enterprise.
To my knowledge, the last time Stourbridge v Wheeley was applied to any effect in modern times, was 1997. Since then, the principle has been given the nod only, while applying an over-riding discretionary finding, and latterly being ignored altogether.

But, with all due respect, are you not choosing to selectively disregard the very first clause of Section 7 (1) which says "On and after the transfer date the Company in the exercise of its statutory powers and duties in the Bridgewater Canal ....."

I feel that most of the "fine minds" to which you refer are more concerned that our navigation authorities (all of them) operate only in accordance with the law and that the present mess is sorted.  With the complete lack of will and interest by government in ensuring that, boaters are compelled to fend for themselves.