If the UK is a country of villages, then its canal network is the longest village of them all. Our 250-year-old itinerant boating community stretches all the way from Bristol to York. And the community spirit of our shifting village is stronger now than ever. The world’s longest village got together on the 14th June to celebrate life on the water at the Boaters’ Big Bash, held on the Paddington Arm in West London. In what can best be described as a village fair, the Boaters’ Big Bash brought together live music from boater musicians; rousing speeches; a raffle; arts, crafts, and entertainment for boating families; and, of course, a classic tea and cake stall.
Big Boater’s Bash Summer 2025
It took two four-banners stitched together to display the “Welcome to the Longest Village in the World” poster. Land-dwelling local residents came to join the celebration of life on the water, with many telling boaters how glad they were to see the once-abandoned waterways brimming with life again.
The NBTA continues to protest against CRT at boating events around the country. Get in touch if you’d like to join in.
We from the NBTA believe events like this are great to bring people together, increase feelings of community, and public support. If you helped with the event or just attended it, thank you.
If you would like to get involved to help make the next event a success, let us know by emailing nbtalondon@gmail.com.
While CRT complains about the reduction in government funding and uses it as an excuse to increase our licence fees, we must remind ourselves that the reason given by the Tory government for the creation of CRT was so that the waterways could eventually be self-sustaining and not need any government funding. Putting aside the fact that the only way the waterways can continue is at least in part via government funding, the question is: how could the waterways be self-funded?
The only way that the waterways could be self-sustaining is by the waterways authority managing its profitable assets properly. However, CRT, which got the government contract in the first place on the proviso that it would eventually be self-sustaining, has been selling off its profitable assets. Back in 2018, for example, CRT put up for sale its marina subsidiary, BWML. Why did they do this? Was it because the marinas were unprofitable? No. In the words of Stuart Mills, Chief Investment Officer at CRT at the time, “BWML is performing well and we believe its prospects for future growth are good.” In 2018, the turnover at BWML was £8,502,000. This level of turnover continued to grow even after BWML became Aquavista. In 2021, turnover was £10,064,021. But unlike when it was BWML, CRT doesn’t receive that profit from Aquavista.
Limehouse Waterside and Marina is also part of Aquavista owned by BWML
Now that CRT has sold off BWML, who gets that profit? While there are many strands to this, simply put, the profits go primarily to the private equity company Lloyds Development Capital (LDC), which is part of Lloyds Bank. In 2018, CRT sold all its shares in BWML for £2,116 (yes! We found it difficult to believe too, but this is what the financial reports suggest) to a limited company called Project Belize Limited. You would think that the 18 marinas, including the Crick Marina, caravan sites, etc., would sell for millions, but the amount isn’t reported in the press, nor is it in the financial reports of CRT, Project Belize, or Aquavista. So, BWML became Aquavista, and Project Belize borrowed roughly £35 million from Lloyds Development Capital for infrastructure (no more detail is given than that). Aquavista now has 29 marinas in its growing portfolio. A lot of the profits from the marinas go to paying off the debt and, of course, paying shareholders.
CRT sold off this whole road (Dock Road) in 2024
So why did CRT sell off these very profitable assets like marinas, particularly when they weren’t facing a large funding shortfall from the government? There appears to be no good business reason. Even if they sold them off for £35 million, with the level of profit the assets were making, they would get that back in a few years. What better way to bring in money for a water authority than moorings? As well as profits from moorings, BWML generated income from caravan sites, boat brokerage, property rents, and other sources. Now that profit is being gobbled up by shareholders and bankers rather than going back into reinvestment in the waterways, which serve the wider public good.
Sadly, this is not an isolated case. CRT and British Waterways before them have been selling off anything bolted down or otherwise. From lock houses and dredging equipment to even towpaths, assets have been sold off and are being sold off, and this isn’t to the benefit of the waterways. It’s only to the benefit of the people and businesses that own them now. So it is CRT’s remarkable mismanagement (read: selling off) of its assets that has led to huge holes in its funding. We shouldn’t allow CRT to lump us with the bill for this with ever increasing licence fees. We say to CRT: fund our waterways and stop selling our assets!
NBTA London needs your support to carry on our work. Please get in touch here if you would like to volunteer with us. Alternatively your donations are vital to us supporting boaters with their legal case work, campaign banners and other printed material as well as events. You can help us with your donations online here
NBTA London’s annual boaters’ winter social returns!
Join us for an evening of delicious food and boater chat, as well as watching the amazing video ‘Off the Cut’ together. We will also be having a discussion on the impact increased enforcement has had on our community, and how sticking together is necessary for the survival of our community.
Let’s eat, drink and be boaty!
Tickets will cost £2.50 this year, but includes your first drink!
Time: Saturday 30th November 2024 at 7pm
Location: London Action Resource Centre, 62 Fieldgate St, London E1 1ES
Tickets oftwn sell out well in advance, so don’t delay!
This wonderful film gives a unique insight into a community of boaters living on the Kennet and Avon canal in 2016. Shining a light on the impact the increased enforcement of 2015 had, the film follows a family on their pedal powered boat as they embark on a journey in which their way of life, and that of the whole community, comes under strain.
It has been 3 years since CRT installed a new set of ‘No Mooring Zones’ on the River Lee. These ‘No Mooring Zones’ were exclusionary and unpopular at their outset – leaving the boating and wider community confused why it was so necessary to push boaters out of such a vital community area – without any evidence of a safety issue in the first place.
For 3 years boaters have continued to moor in protest at these ‘No Mooring Zones’ – yet the river has remained safe, with no significant, or even noticeable spike in safety incidents. The Itinerant Boating Community is full of diversity. Boat dwellers are also canoeists, paddle boarders and rowers, and NBTA are keen to encourage and celebrate this diversity, so we have approached CRT to suggest a different approach. An approach based on mutual initiatives – rather than exclusionary ‘No Mooring Zones’ – where different aspects of the boating community work together to ensure the river is accessible to all.
It is early days yet, and we hope that discussion will have began in earnest by the end of July – but early signs are good, with CRT and key boating orgs along the River Lee showing interest in a different and more collaborative approach.
A further benefit to this collaborative approach is it can be ‘grassroots’, growing within the community – saving CRT the cost of needless and ineffective micro-management and policing during this time of financial need.
It’s been over two years since CRT decided to enforce ‘no mooring’ in areas of the ‘safety’ zones; their aim is to clear boats away from parts of the River Lea, yet boaters are continuing to resist. Boaters on mass are ignoring CRT’s ridiculous ‘no mooring’ sites. Thanks to collective boater action, the ‘safety zones’ have clearly failed. For more information about the safety zones: https://nbtalondon.co.uk/3049-2/
NBTA London needs your support to carry on our work. Please get in touch here if you would like to volunteer with us. Alternatively your donations are vital to us supporting boaters with their legal case work, campaign banners and other printed material as well as events. You can help us with your donations online here
The process of privatisation can be witnessed in various stages on London’s canal network. As visitor moorings become pre-bookable and chargeable moorings become private, the absence of boats on significant lengths of towpath in Central London is testament to the financial exclusion of boaters from these areas.
In 2016 NBTA made it explicitly clear in talks with CRT that public moorings should not be converted to private use. In August 2023, chargeable moorings at Rembrandt Gardens and Paddington Basin doubled in price overnight from £12 to £25. 80m of previous visitor moorings in Paddington Basin and 160m in Little Venice were converted to chargeable also at £25 a night, effectively £50 for two nights with a midday turnaround. Beyond the financial means of most boaters.
Paddington Basin
A Freedom of Information Request reveals pontoons in Paddington are used at half-capacity 49% of the time, bookings made across 1,200 days generated £16,000 in income. At Rembrandt Gardens 584 days generated £6,350. While there has been high uptake of free pre-bookable mooring in Kings Cross and Angel; new chargeable moorings in Little Venice and Paddington are running at 24% capacity and have since August been underused with a total of only 218 bookings and £5,425 in revenue. These moorings are sighted by three rangers (among other duties) at a cost of £100,000.
CRT claim financial exclusion makes the system ‘fair’ for all boaters, giving everyone an equal opportunity. Significant lengths of pre-bookable space; 200m at Colebrook Row in Angel and 220m at Treaty St in Kings Cross may well be more democratic for the time being, but how long will they remain free? As mooring opportunities are reduced to make chargeable space, overcrowding is experienced on other parts of the network. Travelling boaters, already threatened with surcharges for lack of ownership and place are being further marginalised by the introduction of these zones.
CRT’s vision for London seems to be canals without boats.
NBTA London needs your support to carry on our work. Please get in touch here if you would like to volunteer with us. Alternatively your donations are vital to us supporting boaters with their legal case work, campaign banners and other printed material as well as events. You can help us with your donations online here
In 2016, prior to launching the London Mooring Strategy, which was published in 2018, CRT and NBTA-London had round-the-table discussions about CRT’s thoughts on “pre-bookable” moorings. NBTA made it explicitly clear that if there were any “pre-bookable” moorings to be created, then they should be on the offside, and that tow-path moorings should never be chargeable.
Instead, CRT proceeded to make use of any vacant offside space not yet used for mooring for “long term”, or “residential” moorings, rather than increasing mooring space for visitors who were willing to book ahead, often making deals with third parties who owned the offside land. Two such set of moorings is at Broadway Market on the Regent, which in particular impedes navigation in what was already a very busy part of the London network, whilst overlooking the opportunity to create “pre-bookable” moorings; the other being Matchmakers on the River Lea, where the installation of those moorings meant CRT with their ‘safety’ zones are trying to enforce a ‘no mooring’ site on the towpath.
Yet, this is taken from CRT’s website:
“It’s really important that navigation is maintained and that it’s not impeded by moored boats. The inner London waterways are very busy with many different types of boater: liveaboard, leisure, freight, and business craft as well as increasing numbers of unpowered craft. This measure is intended to ensure that there is clear navigation for everyone in these busy areas.”
Their policy for safe navigation goes into the ether, however when it comes to the possibility of monetising new moorings, such as those on the offside at Broadway Market on the Regent.
Broadway Market, Regents Canal. Pic by Flickr/@scratch_n_sniff
Seven years following CRT’s first discussions with NBTA, CRT have now taken away several “casual”, “visitor” or towpath moorings, making them “pre-bookable”, and furthermore, have started charging extra. Usually, a CRT licence includes the right to moor on any towpath without extra charge, but CRT are turning 1.1km of London’s regular towpath into new ‘Chargeable’ Moorings that would cost an additional £25 extra a day. CRT’s argument for doing so is to make it ‘fairer’ for past-time and full-time liveaboard boaters alike to have a chance of mooring up in popular parts of the canal network. When we checked the facts behind the manipulated CRT survey on how successful the Paddington Basin chargeable moorings are, a Freedom Of Information Request reveals that these moorings have only been used 25% of the time – the rest of the time they remained empty and unused.
The latest moorings to be eradicated from public, free-for-all use are in Little Venice and Paddington Basin, but this is just the beginning .
On reading the T&Cs for what CRT call “pre-bookable”, but are actually chargeable moorings, included in these T&Cs are “planned” eco moorings on the Regent at Kings Cross and on Sweetwater in the Olympic Park on the Lee Navigation, strongly implying that these eco moorings may also become chargeable. NBTA also infer from this that the existing eco moorings on the Regent at Angel may become chargeable too, not just “pre-bookable”.
Aside from being financially exclusive and therefore fundamentally unfair in the first place, the quantity of chargeable moorings is not proportionate to the needs of boat owners. Lots of these bookable, chargeable mooring spaces will either be paid for by boaters who can’t find public towpath mooring since CRT have reduced those spaces, or they will remain empty because people a) can’t afford them, and b) don’t want them. If they remain largely empty, this may then be a great excuse for CRT to turn them into private moorings – as was the case at Here East moorings on the River Lee.
CRT announce itinerant boat dwellers will pay higher licence fees than others
Just before this newsletter went to press, the Canal and River Trust (CRT) announced that it plans to charge boats without home moorings more than boats with home moorings.
The implications of this are devastating. CRT will now be able to use boat licence fees as a way of removing the travelling boat dweller community from the waterways. It is more important than ever that we join together as a united community to stop CRT in their tracks. We will be sending round a ballot to all members of the NBTA to ask for your input on what action we take next. If you are not already a member, please sign up now to contribute to this vital decision. We have also organised an online meeting to coordinate our fight back. Please join us on Monday 9th October at 7pm. The access details for the meeting can be found on page 3. We hope to see you all there.
NBTA London needs your support to carry on our work. Please get in touch here if you would like to volunteer with us. Alternatively your donations are vital to us supporting boaters with their legal case work, campaign banners and other printed material as well as events. You can help us with your donations online here
CRT admits to spending up to £250k on trying to stop boaters from mooring in the ‘Water Safety Zones’ on the River Lea. A Freedom of Information request shows that as of 31 May 2023, the Trust has spent anything up to £249,680.09 in the two WSZs on the Lower Lea at Hackney/Tottenham and at Broxbourne. All the while, trying to up licence fees and divide the boating community. CRT should stop wasting money on preventing people mooring in these so-called ‘Safety Zones’.
NBTA London needs your support to carry on our work. Please get in touch here if you would like to volunteer with us. Alternatively your donations are vital to us supporting boaters with their legal case work, campaign banners and other printed material as well as events. You can help us with your donations online here
Canal and River Trust (CRT) which manages most of inland waterways in England and Wales are marginalising travelling boat dwellers by planning to levy a ‘surcharge’ to boaters for not having a home mooring. CRT are trying to destroy our nomadic way of life. Let’s come together to oppose the surcharge on our community.
National protest to march on CRT’s boss Richard Parry’s offices in Central Birmingham on Saturday 25 November at 12 noon! Fight CRT’s divisive licence fee hikes!
Get ready to march in protest!
Join us on the march, meet at City Centre Gardens in Birmingham
If you can, bring boats and moor them outside their offices. Let us know if you want to be involved:
If you want be added the licencecampaign@lists.riseup.net campaign email list or be added to the campaign WhatsApp groups, ask us to add you by emailing: stopboatlicencediscrimination@gmail.com
NBTA London needs your support to carry on our work. Please get in touch here if you would like to volunteer with us. Alternatively your donations are vital to us supporting boaters with their legal case work, campaign banners and other printed material as well as events. You can help us with your donations online here
The Canal & River Trust’s (CRT) failing ’Water Safety Zones’ scheme on the River Lee has been dealt another blow after a risk assessment confirmed that the expensive and unpopular zones are ‘not necessary’.
Once referred to by CRT as ‘Water Sports Zones’, these designated areas on both the Lower and Upper Lee – close to the Lea Rowing Club in Hackney and Broxbourne Rowing Club in Hertfordshire – are a part of CRT’s strategy to remove the number of places where boaters can moor, and to force the itinerant liveaboard community off the water.
Initially CRT had plans to get rid of 550 mooring spaces along the River Lea, where boaters have the right to moor for up to 14 days at a time. Following a sustained campaign of resistance from the boating community (many of whom have continued to moor on the sites despite harassment and failed attempts at enforcement) CRT relented on the full threatened 550 mooring spaces. However, they continue to try and eliminate 295 mooring spaces.
CRT have been unable to provide a clear reason for these ‘No Mooring’ Zones, and despite constant requests have not released any assessment that explains why these sites should be ‘No Mooring’. The National Bargee Travellers Association (NBTA) finally ran out of patience and commissioned an independent risk assessment at three of these ‘No Mooring’ Zones themselves. This assessment, carried out by a qualified and experienced IOSH and IIRSM Risk Assessment professional at three of the ‘No Mooring’ Zones, concludes the following:
‘Boats moored in this area cannot be considered an additional risk as they comply with national standard practice(…) Mooring restrictions at these sites are not necessary’.
The resulting verdict goes on to suggest that it is more important for craft – including row boats – to manage their speed effectively to avoid any potential incidents.
The ‘No Mooring’ Zones policy is designed to make life difficult for many boaters, and could ultimately drive them off the water and out of their homes.
Daniel Prada is an itinerant liveaboard boater who has been moored on and off on the ‘No Mooring Zones’ this year, including on one of the sites the risk assessment covers. He said:
“It’s clear to me that this has never been about safety. The Lower Lee is one of the widest waterways in the whole of CRT’s South East waterway region and I’ve never seen any issues with the navigation at all because of moored boats. Honestly, this just feels like another way for the CRT to put pressure on boaters and make our life more difficult. This is my home – it’s where I’m raising my daughter. To have CRT try and force me out of it just makes me more resolved to defend it so that the waterways can remain a place for everyone.”
CRT has recently put out a series of announcements regarding their money issues, blaming everyone but themselves for the holes in their finances. However, a Freedom of Information request shows that as of 31 May 2023, the Trust has wasted anything up to £249,680.09* on the Water Safety Zones – much of it spent on outsourced enforcement contracts with companies like District Enforcement.
Marcus Trower, of NBTA London
Marcus Trower, of the London branch of the National Bargee Travellers Association (NBTA), has also been continuing to defy the ‘No Mooring’ Zones. He said:
“The NBTA has continuously tried to engage with the CRT to address legitimate safety concerns, but this risk assessment confirms what we knew all along – that the so-called ‘water safety zones’ have never been about safety, and have always been about trying to erase our community from our homes, impoverishing the waterways as a result. Boaters have mounted an incredible resistance to this dishonest, wasteful and fundamentally doomed policy for years, ever since it was first announced. The news that CRT has been lying about their intentions all along, and wasting hundreds of thousands of pounds – which we provide through our licence fees – in the process will only galvanise our community further. CRT needs to stop mismanaging both their finances and the waterways in general, and get their house in order. We will continue to resist, protest and push back at any and all further attacks on the boater community with all means at our disposal.”
No Mooring Sign in the ‘Safety Zones’ covered by boaters with a bin bag
The campaign of resistance against the ‘Water Safety Zones’ continues in full swing. Many boats continue to ignore the ‘no mooring’ signs and resist CRT’s campaign of harassment, and in May of this year hundreds attended the NBTA Spring Fayre – a celebration of the boater community held at one of the key sites that the CRT is trying to erase boaters from in Hackney.
*CRT caveats this figure, saying it is the total spend in the ‘Water Safety’ Zones, and so may cover costs relating to other Trust activities. However, after the recent spate of new ‘No Mooring’ signs erected in both areas, this number will certainly have risen since May already.
NBTA London needs your support to carry on our work. Please get in touch here if you would like to volunteer with us. Alternatively your donations are vital to us supporting boaters with their legal case work, campaign banners and other printed material as well as events. You can help us with your donations online here
A volunteer organisation formed in 2009 campaigning and providing advice for itinerant boat dwellers on Britain’s inland and coastal waterways
National Bargee Travellers Association - London Branch 