No Lancaster discount

I READ with interest on another site about the sighting of a 70ft narrowboat in Whitehaven Harbour; the assumption being that it must have navigated the open sea from the Lancaster Canal via Glasson sea lock, writes Eric Weiss.

It would not have been the first time for such a foolhardy venture but... why?

The Lancaster was for 200 years, clearly a disconnected waterway. As such its local boaters were eligible for a British Waterways 25% discount. With the opening of the Ribble Link in 2002, that discount was unilaterally withdrawn. Many licenced boats incapable of coping with maritime waters found their licences bumped up by that now additional, 25%.

Complaint to CaRT

A complaint was made to Canal & River Trust that this was unfair, especially as the aggregate number of days the Link was open amounted to 90 to 100 days (or three months) a year. It was proposed that a fairer way would be to reinstate the discount but pay it back if using the facility.

Following the formal complaints procedure achieved nothing, as expected, and the matter was referred to the Waterways Ombudsman. That also failed to impress and was dismissed. His opinion was that the Lancaster was no longer disconnected regardless that for 275 days the Lancaster is disconnected. A simple appeal for pound for pound equality in that a £1,000 licence buys access to 2,200 miles of water on the system, equates to 50p per mile all year round whereas the same amount for 42 miles all year round it nearly £25 per mile was dismissed as being deemed not part of the original complaint.

It was surprising then to be informed of what appears to be the real reason the appeal failed:

The real reason

The Waterways Ombudsman, Andrew Walker, explained:

"On your point about fairness to all boaters, I can consider only your complaint. However, if I were then to decide that you should be able to get the 25% discount, it is inevitable that other licence-holders would also want it, and the Trust would find it hard to refuse, especially if a sufficient number were to complain. That would raise another difficulty, which I hadn't mentioned it in my draft report, but my maximum award is £100,000. It is of course many times the reduction you are asking for, but because the Trust would in effect have to apply it to everybody else, it would not go very far.

"With 1,300 boats on the Lancaster Canal, £100,000 equates to about £77 per boat on a one-off basis, but any reduction would be a recurring cost to the Trust. If a typical licence costs £800, a 25% reduction would be £200, multiplied by 1,300 comes to £260,000. The cost for all time depends on interest rates, but to finance an income reduction of £260,000 per year may well cost around £5 million."

Obviously, it's not just the sands of the Ribble Estuary that are liable to shifting without warning.