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Boaters beware - more fines planned

10/5/2017

4 Comments

 
Boaters tempted to take a chance on an empty mooring should beware – the Canal & River Trust is planning to fine you. Peter Underwood reports.


Some boaters paying mooring fees to the Canal & River Trust have received a letter telling them of plans for a £75 a day fine if they overstay after terminating their mooring agreement.


It will also apply to a boater who moors on C&RT long term moorings, even though there may be an empty spot.


The Trust carefully refers to the penalty as a 'charge' much as it does with it's overstaying fines of £25 a day on some visitor moorings.
This is because the Trust does not have legal powers to issue or collect fines and it may be significant that it has confirmed that it has not once taken to court any boater refusing to pay an overstaying charge on a visitor mooring.


The charge is legally doubtful and it seems that C&RT is currently carefully avoiding being told by the courts that its charge is, in fact, a fine, and that they can't impose it on anyone.


However, that has not prevented C&RT from instituting a three-month trail (from June) applying to long term Waterside Mooring moorings, rather than visitor moorings.


It’s being trailed, apparently with clear signage, at some sites in London and the South East and the East Midlands waterways.
 
C&RT says the reason for the charges are the inconvenience for cruising boats who return to their mooring to find someone else there, although it doesn't say there has been any rush of complaints from moorers about the problem.


The Trust PR said: “In this respect I guess it’s no different from returning to your marina berth to find it taken by someone else.”


The letter says that a boat moored without authorisation will be given a warning notice – giving them two days to move it before a fine is incurred.

4 Comments
Richard Hole
10/5/2017 07:11:53

This is yet another attempt by an otherwise unemployable CRT manager to be seen to be doing something in order to attempt to justify his/her existence.

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carol krebs link
10/5/2017 08:30:51

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TJ link
11/5/2017 10:42:28

Once again a charitable trust which has no place appointing "officers" (an officer by definition being a person holding public office) is making up "laws" and attempting to create a situation whereby it can criminalise people in order to rake in a little extra revenue for itself !

Whilst I agree that someone paying for a mooring should not have it 'stolen' I also know of many long term moorings which are currently and have for some time been vacant at places where visitor moorings are somewhat scarce and frequently filled, even out of the holiday boating season. Why should their temporary use be such a problem for CRT ? Another example of rules being instigated by people who live in houses, work in offices and know little about the day to day needs of liveaboard boaters, particularly those on continuous cruising licences. THE 1995 CANAL ACT CLEARLY STATES THAT CONTIUOUS CRUISERS ARE PERMITTED TO MOOR "ANYWHERE" FOR UP TO 14 DAYS. WHY THEN DO CRT CONTINUOUSLY IGNORE AN ACT OF PARLIAMENT IN FAVOUR OF MAKING UP THEIR OWN RULES AND ATTEMPTING TO ENFORCE WHAT CAN ONLY BE DESCRIBED BY ANY SANE PERSON AS "FINES" ? !

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TJ link
12/5/2017 10:48:59

Oh dear... clicking on my initials appears to produce an error message as the link has somehow become corrupted, it seems to have lost a : from the address. The file it linked to can however be downloaded here ------> https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/media/library/8515.pdf

Enjoy :-)

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