No idea how to run a waterway
SO THE South East Mooring Consultation has finally been published. And once again CaRT has demonstrated it has no idea how to run a waterway, writes Maffi.
It has displayed a total lack of understanding of how the waterways work and what people do on the waterways.
Not about 'fairness'
This consultation is not about ‘fairness' at honey-pot sites but about stopping people enjoying the waterway. I mean a two day limit in Oxford is laughable. Oxford has five or six museums, four theatres about six cinemas and myriad colleges that have history that go back ten times further than CaRT/BW ever could.
It has the old and famous boat houses, the locations of Alice in Wonderland, probably more water courses than Venice has canals and a whole host of interesting stuff to do and see. I could spend two weeks in the ASHMOLEAN Museum and there's the Museum of CHILDRENS' LITERATURE, another couple of days. The COUNTY Museum, the NATURAL HISTORY Museum, the PITT RIVERS. The almost countless college chapels. The PLAY HOUSE, the NEW Theatre, the OFS Theatre. Oxford is also home to the BURTON/TAYLOR Theatre. There is the CARFAX Tower, the Covered Market, the parks, Christchurch Meadow. The TURF TAVERN, EAGLE and CHILD, LAMB and FLAG a whole host of others that have been featured in Morse and dozens of other literary works. Lets not forget the BODLIAN Library, the SHELDON Theatre, the RADCLIFFE Camera, the SCIENCE Museum, the ALICE Shop. I could continue but it would take me more than 48 hours to list them all and I don't want to get an over-stay charge.
It is a fine
On the subject of the overstay charge. . . It is not a charge it is a fine. Were it a charge it would be £5-£8 pro-rata the cost of mooring in the area. £25 is equivalent to £9,125 pa. A ‘charge' has to be fair. When it ceases to be fair and becomes punitive it is a fine, and £9,125 is punitive.
The biggest problem I find with the consultation is the need to keep thinking—‘what do the regulations say for this bit and what do they say for that bit'. I'm sorry but boaters shouldn't have to be continually worrying about when they need to move. Every other day getting the maps out to see where next. When can they come back to see the bits they have missed.
Get away from petty rules
Most people I see on the water come here to get away from petty rules and 'up yaself' bureaucrats. This consultation has made the life a pain in the bum for lots of people. It has done it because of that age old problem ‘Bureaucratic incompetence'. Had those people done their job in the first place this situation would never have arisen. There is as problem because CaRT/BW made it, and like all cock-ups its the guy at the bottom that gets dumped on.
We have always lived our lives by queueing it's the natural order of things, you know, first come first served. If you want to be at the front of the queue then get there early. It is no good turning up at somewhere like Thrupp at after 6pm expecting to get moored outside the pub, it ain’t gonna happen!
It's not because the people there are overstaying, it is simply that they got up early moved their boat arrived mid afternoon and moored up. If you didn't get there till nearly dark—tough, stay a few miles out of town and come in mid-afternoon. Don't go shedding tears in the laps of the great wage earners. (Please sir, I can't moor in the nice places. Will you fix it for me?) They wont fix it for you , but they will bugger it for everyone else.