I FIND it strange how the National Bargees Travellers Association and supporters, seem set on a permanent collision course with CaRT by claiming they are being intimidated with threats of ‘eviction and intimidation', writes Eric Weiss.
These highly emotive terms are the current smokescreens of choice for those who cry ‘foul' when challenged for not complying with the rules that apply to everyone who chooses to licence their boat, with or without access to a home mooring. Can anyone really be evicted from a boat they own?
Virtually static
They are neither Bargees nor Travellers if they don't carry freight or are virtually static. The Towpath Squatters Not-Moving-Far Boat Association would be more appropriate; however, it has a less romantic ring to it I suppose.
Everyone in the world should have access to accommodation, so why don't they collectively find a piece of land alongside the canal and buy caravans, instead of pretending to be bona-fide continuous cruisers?
Not a cheap option
Here on the 42 miles Lancaster we are disconnected from the main system for nine months of the year, yet we have ‘continuous cruisers' who stay on year after year while other liveaboards with moorings are even being hit with Council Tax demands as well as mooring fees. Living afloat is definitely not a cheap option.
CaRT is not ‘landlord': neither when it was established, was it charged with functioning as an alternative social housing organisation. The fact that inner London and associated waterways seem over burdened with continuous cruisers who barely move and have forced CaRT's hand to attempt to define in specific terms words such as ‘distance' ‘place' ‘area' ‘range' so that they stand up to legal scrutiny.
Floating shanty town
Lawyers being lawyers, charge like wounded bulls, and we compliant boaters will have to pick up the bill. What the NBTA are actually doing will affect everyone. Even the non-boaters who appreciate the canals for walking, fishing, nature rambling and such will effectively be tramping past accumulations of boats running the risk of resembling the equivalent of a Calcutta floating shanty town.
The prospect even now, begs the unsavoury question of what is happening to the water quality and immediate environment with the unavoidable detritus and effluent being generated by concentrated living conditions.
Deny access to boaters
Mooring blockers in such concentrations deny access to continuous cruisers and leisure boaters alike. More sanitary stations and water-points although always desirable, are costly to provide and maintain and will effectively encourage the sense of permanency that will attract even more ‘residents' unless CaRT and the boating associations hammer out an acceptable and binding agreement.
The last thing we want to see is our national licence fee being increased disproportionately and used to fund a British waterways police force or the introduction of complex legislation along the lines of the Queen's Military Regulations.