London mooring strategy

I can sort of visualise London's Canal System with narrowboats gently drifting free from constraints.......

The London enforcement division is getting tougher though - this has been recently flagged up: an article in the Evening Standard over the destruction of a floating home in Islington, by CaRT.

www.standard.co.uk/news/london/pair-forced-out-of-floating-wendy-house-with-a-roof-made-out-of-foxtons-for-sale-signs-a3757936.html

It scarcely seems possible, even for CaRT, that such action was taken without warning, or adherence to what the CaRT spokesperson described as: “strict procedures to make sure we act within the law.”

According to the article, the ‘houseboat’ had only been placed in the water for a fortnight – if true, the action was hardly in conformity with the “not less than 28 days” notice required under s.8. Even if it was not considered to be a ‘vessel’ under s.8, s.9 [removal of objects] gives no power to destroy on the spot, only to removal, with 14 days notice to be given once in the authority’s custody, to any identified owner, allowing them to retake possession.

The owners claim, in the article, to have been in the process of “trying to get it registered”. I sincerely hope that a great deal of the background has been omitted from the article, but the quoted CaRT response – to the effect that such “craft” [their word, so they were not treating it as a s.9 object] had to be both “licensed and crucially, safe” suggests otherwise. It seems evident that no inspection had been made to identify potential safety issues, and that this was the first contact.

It would be good to hear some more fulsome explanation of the events from CaRT than that quoted. Otherwise, this has to be considered one of the most extreme and summary actions ever taken by a waterways authority.

The offending item....

It doesn't offend me either - in fact, I think it is quite stylish, in a cute way. That does not mean that they ought not to have have pre-arranged the necessary paperwwork and licensing, and to have moored elsewhere than in front of a 'no mooring' sign.

In fact, of course, the appearance is irrelevant, the issue is whether the actions taken were lawful and proportionate. It was an offence to have brought this onto the canal, and the proper procedure would have been to notify the inhabitants of what they needed to do to be compliant with licensing requirements; if that failed to achieve the desired result, then a prosecution should ensue - though with the Ravenscroft judgment, proportionality does not enter the picture, and CaRT could have s.8'd it as a first recourse without fear of court censure - but they have not, on the face of the article, exercised that power either, so I am more than curious what powers they DID purport to exercise.

Just for anybody who hasn't seen the shed boat on the L&L
www.readersheds.co.uk/share.cfm?SHARESHED=6348
I can confirm that it has a registration number and last time I saw it was liscenced. I don't know how he's planing to pull it along on the Aire@ Calder or the Trent for that matter.

Isn't that simply an advert for the scum Foxtons estate agents? If it were genuine then it would have been made from a variety of different boards.

Marketing bullshit me thinks.

AirBnB scum used a floating advert so its not a new trend.

Probably got them out of a skip somewhere because the design was changed.