New judgment on housing benefit for boaters

Twat

No I thought not.

I first read through this judgment in some dismay at the unquestioning swallowing of the Boat Licence “contractual” nature, alert to any knock-on effects in relation to other current issues plaguing yet another sector of boaters, with offside moorings that CaRT refuse to recognise. The refusal of the Appeal Court to consider my marshalled arguments on that topic (in the interests of focussing on a single issue), meant that the EoG situation has remained since then, where Stoner & Co had left it at County Court levels – that the boat licence did NOT confer any right for the boat to occupy “land covered by water”, this being (on Stoner's argument) a 'right to keep' a boat on the water, rather than a 'right to use' a boat on the water, both rights having been abolished by the TA 1968.

I have always maintained the nonsense of that argument, by reference to the wording of the 1976 byelaws, which provide that the PB licence confers – very specifically – the right to bring onto, let for hire, keep AND use the licensed boat on the Board's canals. The effect being that no further consent on CaRT's part is needed to avoid any trespass action simply for floating over the canal bed.

Since those 'simpler' times, of course, CaRT have finessed their whole boat licensing scheme theory into the realm of contract law, instead of the truth that it is bound by the terms of the relevant statutes. This has 'allowed' them (in practical reality, however illegally) to give or withhold the licence at will; limit what the licence does and does not permit, and render it all subject to their agreement based on the boat owner's enforced submission to an agreement to the arbitrary (and ultra vires) T&C's.

Now, however, this recent judgment has – in at least ostensibly accepting and wholeheartedly endorsing the contractual nature of the boat licence – determined the effect of that to be a grant of consent to occupy the land beneath the water on which the boat floats. Further, that this applies across the board, whether on a CC 14 day basis or in a home mooring situation.

The further serendipitous effect of this judgment therefore, is to hoist CaRT firmly by their own petard, and remove their long-held false rationale for giving or withholding consent for boat owners to moor to their own property.

Interesting.

My cousin, who has been living on a CRT "leisure" towpath mooring for about 10 years told me that one of the moorings came up at auction and someone acquired it on housing benefit. The effect was that he could outbid others because the amount of money the housing office would provide was fixed. So he got the mooring and it was far more expensive than previous auctions because of demand at that moment.

Seems a bit dodgy. The mooring in question is a site where CRT have previously asked the council for PP to install several residential towpath side moorings but were refused.

This might not be entirely accurate as it is second hand news but I reckon it's probably true..


I know the mooring site as I used to live there years ago and it was blatantly obvious that the first few moorings should be converted to residential with services.

Mooring prices seem to have risen quite sharply over the last few years anyway. The auction system has lead to this. There are lots of refugees from sawley marina who have moved to the towpath locally pushing prices at auction of waterside moorings. Also the London trend of young couples who can’t afford bricks and mortar buying a boat seems to be moving north.

Is that particular bit of C&RT/Stoner nonsense readily accessible via any link or already published transcript, Nigel ?  Hostilities over C&RT's self-conferred, but nonetheless County Court endorsed, powers to suspend the river Trent PRN at will are about to resume, and I'm wondering if there could be anything in Stoner's EoG argument that they would prefer not to be reminded of.