THE complaint to the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) by the National Bargee Travellers Association has brought a quick response from the Canal & River Trust.
The complaint, featured in narrowboatworld yesterday, concerned the Trust's enforcement action against a pregnant Bargee Traveller, it believes in violation of her Equality Act rights.
Updating
This has resulted in the Trust updating its policies concerning enforcement against boaters who do not comply with its continuous cruiser rules:
We are updating our published policies to reflect our obligations and current practices under the Equality Act - this will include how we assess and implement reasonable adjustments for disabled people and how we assess impacts and avoid unlawful discrimination against all protected characteristics—including in respect of pregnant boaters.
Accessible
We will be happy to make this document accessible on our website and refer to it in other related documents—so that boaters who are not already aware of our current practices are aware of the updated published policy.
Enforcement officers already receive training in equality and will continue to do so.
We will continue to consider equality adjustments where appropriate in line with our obligations under the Equality Act.
Seeking to assist boaters
We are currently seeking to assist boaters with school aged children establish compliant patterns of movement—any request to relax our requirements for this group we will balanced against a number of other legitimate aims, including our duties to manage the waterways, the need to mitigate congestion around certain parts of the network and fairness to other boaters.