No doubt litter is a major issue in the UK.
But what would you say if because someone started flytipping on your country lane, your entire village was forced to start wearing tracking devices, while bailiffs threatened to take your home because you’d failed to pay a fine?
Under the guise of “cleaning up the waterways”, the Canal and River Trust (CRT) is pushing to introduce a whole raft of new powers through parliament that will effectively turn canals into an open-air prison….
Whether it’s criminal gangs getting away with illegal toxic dumps, people fly-tipping in the mountains of Wales, or city streets with overflowing bins – not enough is being done to fix the blight of litter and pollution in the UK.
In some corners of the country, communities have been stepping up to try to combat the problem, including the boating community, themselves.
However, CRT is seeking an entirely different solution to the issue of litter on the canal: draconian new powers that will affect every boater in the UK.
Rather than address the root causes, CRT is agitating for new “enforcement” powers that will allow them to dictate boaters cruising ranges, continue to raise costs for licence holders, and forcibly dispossess people of their homes if they’re unable to comply.
How a suite of new draconian powers – without any oversight! – is going to dissuade the country’s litter bugs is not entirely clear.
. 
In a recent debate in Parliament (21 January 2026), the Lib Dem Member for Bath, Wera Hobhouse, took the opportunity to rehash many of the CRT’s tired talking points including blaming boats for litter along her local canal, rather than the significant reduction in bins and other waste facilities by the Trust.
After sharing her concerns about litter and pollution in her constituency, Hobhouse acknowledged that there are government agencies already empowered and funded to deal with the issues she outlines:
“…the Environment Agency is responsible for pollution and environmental protection, local authorities oversee byelaws relating to littering and antisocial behaviour, and the police retain responsibility for criminal offences.”
Hobhouse then went on to suggest (in a speech which appeared to have been ghost-written by CRT’s management) that as these issues remain unresolved in Bath, due to overlaps in remit by these agencies, it therefore follows that CRT – a quango entrusted to maintain our canals and waterways – should be supported in its lobbying for unnecessary new legislation.
While the honourable MP for Bath did share her intention to:
“bring together the Canal & River Trust, the police, the Environment Agency and the local authority to improve local co-ordination and enforcement”,
it appears she (or the CRT) has already decided that this won’t actually fix the issue.
Hobhose says in her statement in parliament:
‘but let me make it clear that, although better collaboration is essential, this alone is not enough. To genuinely improve enforcement on our waterways—and I echo the calls of the Canal & River Trust in this regard—we must see meaningful reform of the law.’
Under the guise of dealing with small challenges that the whole country is grappling with in every community, the CRT is pushing to retract decades-long rights of navigation and to slap a bunch of unnecessary extra burdens on ordinary citizens.
Among its many plans, CRT wants the power to mandate a new boat cruising range per year and to add trackers to those who fail to meet these – effectively treating boaters as criminals for not moving far enough, fast enough in a year.
CRT also has plans on the table to restrict the number of boats allowed in areas that are “popular”, making it possible to buy your way into space that is meant to be public. Some of these “popular” areas were no-go zones not that long ago, before boats brought life, community and safety to them.
Finally, for those who do not meet these unjustifiable changes, CRT wants to increase its enforcement powers.
The Member for Bath admits there are clear pre-existing pathways to fix the problems she raises in parliament; these just require collaboration.
Before the CRT seeks government support to radically change the lives of thousands of boaters with draconian new legislation and unchecked power, we suggest all these agencies work together with the power and resources they already have.
We call on the honourable MP for Bath – do not to get hoodwinked into supporting this play for more authoritarian powers to a quango which – unlike the police and the Environmental Agency – has no direct government oversight at all.
Just two weeks ago, CRT released a statement applauding its successful eviction of an encampment in London that was deemed illegal and unsightly.
‘Matthew Aymes, our national licensing compliance & enforcement manager, said: “This structure and the individuals associated with it were causing significant disruption to the local community and law-abiding boaters nearby. I’m delighted that we have been able to use the appropriate legal processes to remove it.’
Clearly tidying up pockets of the waterways that have become a bit of a mess – as Mrs Hobhouse, wants to see in her constituency of Bath – is entirely possible within the scope of current legislation and in conjunction with government agencies empowered and properly trained to achieve this.
The recommendations by CRT’s self-commissioned “independent” commission on boat licensing will have negative economic, social, educational and health impacts on a huge community of people – from students to families to pensioners – almost immediately.
Handing a raft of new powers to a charity at arm’s length from the government that will punish an entire community, is a gross overreach and emblematic of a slide towards authoritarianism we’re seeing across the world right now. It must be rejected.
Boaters must not be the scapegoat for the CRT’s failure to work with government agencies to enforce laws that already exist from the local bylaws on littering to the British Waterways Act (1995).
National Bargee Travellers Association - London Branch 
Boaters are already the scapegoat for the condition the waterways have deteriorated to and have become.
It started during the tenure of British Waterways, however, that largely failed, why, because at the time, the canals and associated waterways of the UK were largely government owned and controlled and covered by the British Watertways Act from nationalisation of the waterways.
It was the British Waterways Act, although not perfect, gave protection to the waterways, boating companies, boat owners and canal and river users.
It was not until the constant bleating and complaining of British Waterways management and what was in those dire times, the new boating companies and the ‘idle rich’ and their new built boats that spent most of their lives within the confines and locality of British Waterways owner and sponsored/approved marinas, who saw the waterways as a money spinning object and sought to wrest control from (and with the collusion of) the then majority of the British Waterways board members brought about phrases that did not and never had done such as ‘continuous cruisers and continuous cruising) in their first attempts at apportioning blame for the condition the waterways were deteriorating into to after the closure of so many local waterways offices and yards and the laying off of Banksmen who took pride and control of their sections of the canals and waterways and kept them clean and tidy and safe without the need for endless meetings, reams of paper and endless hot air talking on basic waterways management issues that lead to nowhere except more endless meetings and less works actually being carried out on basic waterways maintenance.
The spectre of the so called ‘charity’ of the waterways that was to become the Canal & Rivers Trust arose with the constant background noise of alleged and non-existant ‘want’ of boat owners and waterways users that was in fact non-existant and constant sniping at boat owners that finally led to the first win by British Waterways and future C&RT charity board members at imposing restrictions and swinging cost increases on boaters and boat owners with a continuing reduction of waterways conditions and an open assault on the British Waterways Act and the conditions that protected waterways users and boat owners.
And finally with the coming of the C&RT and all its failings and failures and constant waste of monies on anything and everything except the waterways came into being, and the only change was that instead of the same old faces of British Waterways leading the charge on decimating the waterways , it was the same old faces now in C&RT guise that are carrying out those acts, whilst the blame is still being aimed and directed at waterways users and boat owners for the failures of the C&RT
It is time that all waterways users and boat owners came together and countered what has been going on by the ‘in charge people’; who control the waterways and let in be known who is actually responsible for the dire conditions the peoples waterways have been allowed to deteriorate into and hoe the only way to save them is to take them back in to government control.
LikeLike