HAVE YOU EVER WISHED you were more surveilled, controlled and restricted?
Asks the National Bargee Travellers Association—and writes:
The Canal & River Trust (CRT)—the charity tasked with managing around 2,000 miles of the UK’s navigable inland waterways—recently spent £52,000 of disclosed costs to review boat licensing, particularly that of boaters without a home mooring: a group of around 7,000 boaters across the UK. This review, commissioned by CRT itself, would give them the powers of a private judiciary or police force…and it seems they are pushing ahead.
In a recent debate in parliament, the MP for Bath, Wera Hobhouse called for the 36 recommendations of CRT’s review to be legislated on all boaters as a way to remedy the anti-social behaviour of a very small minority in her local area.
The MP in question may have been misled and we hope she will see that the recommendations do not address the issues she hopes to resolve. Also the recommendations have yet to face full consultation as determined by the review itself.
Boater Mark Keir added:
"We can prove the review board were fed inexpert, unfounded, and misleading information by CRT, which could have been corrected before reaching this stage if adequate consultation and representation had taken place."
11 of the recommendations from the review would require legislative change. A similar number could be addressed through the already existing Terms & Conditions of CRT’s licensing framework. For four of the items legislation already exists, and the remainder are administrative tasks.
In a co-ordinated community effort by the National Bargee Travellers Association (NBTA)—a community organisation representing the interests of boaters without a home mooring—we respond in full to those 36 recommendations, and alongside other boating organisations suggest anyone calling for legislation reads and understands the disproportionate powers this would hand the CRT to police compliant boaters without addressing the root cause of anti-social behaviour.
The review in itself was not light reading. Overall the NBTA consider that it lacks validity because: no boater without a home mooring was involved; the Commission was appointed and instructed by CRT yet claims to be impartial; no weighting was given to the input of people who the legislation would affect; the recommendations are inconsistent with CRT’s charitable objectives and; the review does not address the issue of unlicensed boats while seemingly aiming to drive more people into those circumstances.
Our 10 page response can be accessed in full here.