On Saturday the 5th of March at 12pm, NBTA will be counter leafleting CRT’s re-opening of the Hertford union canal in Victoria Park, next to Gunmaker’s gate (E3 5PE).
CRT market themselves as a charity that promotes wellbeing. We will be leafleting to show the public how damaging and nasty their policies are, and how they take actions which attack boaters’ wellbeing and way of life.
We will be leafleting and chatting to members of the public, as well as holding our own picnic and planning meeting for the campaign against the so called safety zones.
Come along with some food and something to sit on, and let’s spread the word about CRT’s lies.
We will be leafleting and chatting to members of the public, as well as holding our own picnic and planning meeting for the campaign.
When NBTA London sent in a complaint about ‘no mooring’ sites on the River Lee, to our surprise CRT wrote back to say…
“The area of policy falls outside of the Trust’s complaints so this will not be considered as a formal complaint.”
This is a new low for CRT. It means if you want to complain about CRT’s policies, of which there are many to complain about, you can’t. This leaves us with the only official channel to take being through the courts. So along with encouraging direct action by defying the new no mooring rules, that is exactly what we are going to do.
For now, we are more than happy to use other channels in having our voices heard. Since we cannot complain online, why not join us on march on offices.
MARCH ON CRT OFFICES! on Saturday 26th March at 1pm Park Square in Regents Park NW1 4LH, nearby tube stations are Great Portland Street and Regent’s Park.
CRT have unveiled plans to start charging for 1.1km of towpath moorings in various locations throughout London. They are doing this without showing any consideration for boaters who live and work in the area, or evidence that they are necessary.
In fact, CRT’s own figures show that their two ‘test sites’ for these new chargeable moorings have had less than 25% occupancy – most of the year they were wasted moorings. Is this really a success? Do we really need more unused chargeable moorings?
Is this just the beginning? CRT are crossing a dangerous line that could see London Waterways and other waterways become something for those who can afford it – disregarding their responsibility to preserve the waterways for all communities. CRT are also planning to rub salt in the wound by enforcing unnecessary double mooring restrictions – regardless of how wide the navigation is. There are many places in London where a narrowboat can easily double moor onto a wide beam, but CRT aim to end this practice.
Rather than concentrating on their mandate to maintain the navigation with things like dredging, they continue to persecute boat dwellers without home mooring. NBTA London demand that CRT do not reduce casual mooring space in London. Turning it into prohibitively expensive, pre-bookable moorings that will often be left unused will only make other areas more busy, and drive people who live and work in these areas out of their livelihoods, and out of their homes.
NBTA London also demand that CRT concentrate on their primary objective of maintaining the navigation, rather than persecuting boaters who moor on some of the widest waterways in the country. If we are not restricting the navigation we should be allowed to double moor.
NBTA and London Boaters have fought and prevented unfair and destructive attempts like these before, and we will do so again. CRT must stop destroying boating communities by favouring one kind of boater over another. They are entrusted with looking after the country’s waterways for everyone. London’s waterways should not be financially exclusive.
Please stop CRT making London’s Waterway financially exclusive by completing their survey below – by telling them that we disagree we can preserve London’s Waterways for everyone, not just those who can afford it.
Also take action to let CRT know our boats are our homes and we aren’t going away from the waterways
MARCH ON CRT OFFICES! on Saturday 26th March at 1pm Park Square in Regents Park NW1 4LH, nearby tube stations are Great Portland Street and Regent’s Park.
CRT Hertford Union event this weekend (18 Feb and 19 Feb) cancellation due to wind, therefore we have cancelled our leafleting of it.
CRT says there event has been postponed until early March.
Therefore, we also cancellation our picnic and planning meeting on this Saturday (19 March)
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On Saturday 19th February at 12pm, NBTA will be counter leafleting CRT’s re-opening of the Hertford union canal in Victoria Park, next to Gunmaker’s gate (E3 5PE).
CRT market themselves as a charity that promotes wellbeing. This is an opportunity for us to show the public how damaging and nasty their policies are, and how they take actions which are intentionally damaging to boaters’ wellbeing and way of life.
We will be leafleting and chatting to members of the public, as well as holding our own picnic and planning meeting for the campaign.
The screws have been tightened on our community. Canal River and Trust (CRT) is trying to bring in more reduced mooring times on the Grand Union; implement banning boats from 295 ‘no mooring’ spaces in ‘safety’ zones; more mooring restrictions; and 1.1km of new chargeable moorings in Central London. The government with the Clean Air Act has made it harder for many of us to heat our homes and open us up to more harassment by land based NIMBYs, by putting boats under the same clean air zones’ restrictions as houses.
We must stand together to defend our nomadic way of life. In fact our way of life has been on firing line for sometime. Some older parts of the community will still remember, when British Waterways (BW) put forward their Bill to government in 1989, BW tried to make it a criminal offence to have a boat without a home mooring on most of the UK waterways.
Due to action some great individuals, that particular attack was defeated and the Bill was made into the British Waterways Act 1995, which enshrined the right for us to have a boat without a home mooring, as long as we use them for navigation and not stay longer than 14 days continuously in one place, unless reasonable.
We are in a different time from then and we need more than great individuals, we need collective action. The resistance to ‘safety’ zones on the River Lea is a great example of how we can defend our way life.
Let’s come together to march on CRT Little Venice office on Saturday 26th March and using the press, let’s make it heard that ‘Boats are Homes’!
Meet at 1pm Park Square in Regents Park NW1 4LH, nearby tube stations are Great Portland Street and Regent’s Park.
National Bargee Travellers Association - London Branch 