David: Moorings Review

LIKE Victor, I have been rather surprised by the vitriolic response to CaRT's mooring consultation. Like a good boy I read it through, and because a lot of the sites are well known to me, I sent in comments and volunteered to attend one of the workshops they are going to hold.

Most of the sites on the Oxford are ones where I have had difficulty finding a mooring in the cruising season and I reckon that a review of the restrictions currently in force is entirely reasonable.

Inevitably they have overlooked one or two issues—no consideration is given to Newbold, where it is often difficult to tie-up at weekends, mainly because it is a convenient cruise from the overcrowded Braunston area. No thought seems to have been given to one of the reasons for overcrowding at certain sites—the presence of lengthy long term moorings. A classic case of this is Cropredy, where there is a long stretch of permanent mooring South of the bridge. Now that there is a marina there (or soon will be) these moorings should be abolished as they become vacant and replaced by short term moorings. A similar point could be made about Heyford and Thrupp, amongst other places.

Hire boaters

I also think it is reasonable to consider the interests of hire boaters; many of them will be first timers and it is in all our interests that they don't become 'last timers', because they have a bad experience. Hire boaters are unlikely to overstay on visitor moorings, but they are also unlikely to want to tie-up early in order to get a space, Most boat owners start as hirers, and the whole continued existence of the system depends to some extent on maintaining a healthy hire boat industry to act as an introduction for future enthusiasts. Obviously, hire boats will have to be treated slightly differently under the 'no return' clauses in the mooring rules, but I don't see any difficulty since they all now carry a different form of licence. More problematic is the issue of shared ownership boats, which are not so readily identifiable.

In fact, most of the changes proposed are relatively minor and will probably represent an improvement. The one big change is that CaRT are proposing to be far more active in enforcing the regulations. Up until now this has only been done in a few locations, and if central Birmingham is anything to go by, it has been a resounding success. I have never failed to find a mooring there since they introduced the enforcement regime and there are never any obvious overstayers there—not once has a warning notice appeared on their boats, anyway.

Rational discussion

So let's try and have a rational discussion about this, without dragging in irrelevant criticism of CaRT personnel. In fact, the whole consultation seems to me to be a bit over the top as a process. If CaRT had just gone out and quietly changed the notices there would have been a lot less fuss—but perhaps they are trying to insulate themselves against legal challenge.

David Hymers