3pm on Saturday 7th February 2015, in the Star of Kings, York Way. This is next to the Regent’s Canal near Kings Place, in Kings Cross.
‘Hands Off Our Homes’ NBTA London public meeting
NBTA London; ‘Hands Off Our Homes’ public meeting
Date: Thursday 22 January at 7pm
Where: London Action Resource Centre, 62, Fieldgale Street, E1 1ES
The Canal and Rivers Trust (CRT) is on a mission to make the lives of liveaboards with no homes moorings harder.
They have been meeting with boaters’ groups to try to get an agreement to a defined place and minimum distance that continuous cruisers must travel to comply with the guidance. This – with the lack of mooring rings and facilities – puts us on a path towards the destruction of our way of life. We must stop the CRT in making our lives harder. We need more mooring rings, more facilities and no more increase of mooring restrictions.
The National Bargee Travellers Association London is hosting a public meeting about the attacks on boater dwellers and discussion about what we should do about it. We have also invited some speakers from the wider housing movement so we can get ideas about what can be done to defend our homes.
All are welcome.
Get a ticket; http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/hands-off-our-homes-tickets-13484136415
CRT Hands Off Our Homes! Public Meeting, 22nd January 2015, London
The Canal & River Trust (CRT) is on a mission to make the lives of live-aboards without home moorings harder. CRT has been meeting with some boaters’ groups to try to get an agreement to an unlawful definition of “place” and an unlawful minimum distance that continuous cruisers should travel to comply with Section 17 (3)(c)(ii) of the British Waterways Act 1995. This, together with recently concreted towpaths without mooring rings that are impossible to moor boats on, and the lack of facilities like water taps, threatens our homes. We must stop CRT making our lives harder. We need more mooring rings, more facilities and no further mooring restrictions.
The National Bargee Travellers Association London is hosting a public meeting about these attacks on boat dwellers and discussion about what we can do about it. We have also invited some speakers from the wider housing movement so we can get ideas about what can be done to defend our homes. Join us at this campaign meeting to plan what action to take.
NBTA press release: distance not important in continuous cruising
NATIONAL BARGEE TRAVELLERS ASSOCIATION
PRESS RELEASE
8th December 2014
DISTANCE NOT IMPORTANT IN CONTINUOUS CRUISING: THE COURT JUDGEMENT CRT TRIED TO HIDE
A recent judgement in a Section 8 case confirms that it would be unlawful for Canal & River Trust (CRT) to set a minimum distance that continuous cruisers must travel to comply with the law.
The judgement in the case of CRT v Mayers states that repeated journeys between the same two places would be “bona fide navigation” if the boater had specific reason for making repeated journeys over the same stretch of canal. HHJ Halbert also stated that any requirement by CRT to use a substantial part of the canal network was not justified by Section 17(3)(c)(ii) of the British Waterways Act 1995 because the requirement to use the boat bona fide for navigation is “temporal not geographical”.
In addition, Judge Halbert determined that a boat with a permanent mooring is not required ever to use its mooring. Indeed, during the course of argument CRT conceded that if Mr Mayers acquired a home mooring, he would be left undisturbed even if he did not use the mooring, provided that he did not exceed the limit of 14 days in one place.
The judgement was handed down in November 2013 but CRT has not published it, unlike other judgements in Section 8 cases. Yet despite knowing about this judgement for a year, CRT is currently attempting to set a minimum distance that continuous cruisers must travel in order to comply with the law.
CRT held two meetings with boating user groups on 22nd September and 3rd November 2014 in which it tried to persuade the groups to agree a minimum distance that boaters without home moorings must travel every three months and over their licence year to avoid enforcement action. CRT did not disclose this judgement at either meeting.
In 2011, BW re-wrote the Mooring Guidance for Continuous Cruisers to remove the words “the law requires a genuine progressive journey (a cruise) around the network or a significant part of it” as a result of the judgement in British Waterways (BW) v Davies. The guidance was renamed Guidance for Boaters Without a Home Mooring.
In 2003, British Waterways tried to introduce the Draft Moorings Code or Lock Miles Rules, which would have required continuous cruisers to travel at least 120 different lock-miles every three months without using the same stretch twice. This draconian proposal was dropped by British Waterways following the threat of legal action by a boating user group and in 2004 the Mooring Guidance for Continuous Cruisers was published instead.
In spite of this judgement CRT started court action in early 2014 against a boat dweller who did not use his home mooring. It has now dropped the Section 8 claim against liveaboard Tony Dunkley.
The relevant paragraphs of the CRT v Mayers judgement are reproduced below.
7.22.3
I consider the requirement imposed by CRT that a substantial part of the network is used cannot be justified by relying solely on section 17(3). That section requires “bona fide navigation throughout the period of the licence” not “bona fide navigation throughout the canal network”. The requirement is temporal not geographical. In my view it does NOT follow from:
“Such journey or cruise must take place “throughout the period of the licence”
that it
“therefore requires progression round the network or at least a significant part of it”
7.22.4
If a person who lived permanently on his or her boat had specific reason for making repeated journeys over the same stretch of canal between two points sufficiently far apart to be regarded as different places, it would in my view be purposeful movement by water from one place to another and hence “bona fide navigation”. In the course of argument I used the example of someone who lived on his boat but was also using the vessel commercially to move coal from a mine to an iron foundry only a few miles away and then returning empty for another load.
7.22.5
To take an extreme example, in its heyday, the Mersey Ferry operated continuously to and fro over the same stretch of water which is less than a mile wide. No one would ever have accepted the suggestion that the ferry boats were not bona fide used for navigation throughout the period of their operations.
6.3
There are clear anomalies in both positions. CRT clearly regard the occupation of moorings by permanently resident boat owners who do not move very much as a significant problem (see paragraphs 3.5 and 3.6 above). However, neither the statutory regime in subsection 17(3) nor the guidelines can deal with this problem. A boat which has a home mooring is not required to be “bona fide used for navigation throughout the period of the licence” but neither is it required ever to use its home mooring. The Act requires the mooring to be available, it does not say it must be used. The guidelines also have this effect. The boat is still subject to the restriction that it must not stay in the same place for more than 14 days but there is nothing whatever to stop it being shuffled between two locations quite close together provided they are far enough apart to constitute different places. If those who are causing the overcrowding at popular spots have home moorings anywhere in the country the present regime cannot control their overuse of the popular spots. Such an owner could cruise to and fro along the Kennet and Avon canal near Bristol and the home mooring could be in Birmingham and totally unused.
You can download the judgement here http://www.bargee-traveller.org.uk/?page_id=23
NOTES FOR EDITORS
1. For more information contact the National Bargee Travellers Association, press@bargee-traveller.org.uk or 0118 321 4128
2. The National Bargee Travellers Association (NBTA) is a volunteer organisation that campaigns and provides advice for itinerant boat dwellers on the UK’s inland and coastal waters.
3. Boats can be licensed to use Canal & River Trust’s waterways without a permanent mooring under Section 17(3)(c)(ii) of the British Waterways Act 1995. This section states:
(ii) the applicant for the relevant consent satisfies the Board that the vessel to which the application relates will be used bona fide for navigation throughout the period for which the consent is valid without remaining continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances.
4. The Court granted a Section 8 order to CRT on the grounds that Mr Mayers had deliberately not navigated at all, in breach of the 14-day rule, and had therefore not complied with Section 17(3)(c)(ii).
5. The CRT v Mayers and BW v Davies judgements are County Court judgements. The County Court is not a Court of Record and therefore its judgements do not form case law or create legal precedents. However, County Court judgements can be persuasive to other judges. The Practice Direction on the Citation of Authorities [2001] 1 WLR 1001 states that County Court judgements may be cited in a County Court “in order to demonstrate current authority at that level on an issue in respect of which no decision at a higher level of authority is available”. No other decisions apart from these exist at a higher level regarding the issue of the interpretation of Section 17(3)(c)(ii) of the British Waterways Act 1995.
6. Normally when CRT wins a Section 8 case against a boater it publishes the judgement (where there is one) and the order herehttps://canalrivertrust.org.uk/publication-scheme/publication-scheme/court-action-to-remove-boats-from-our-waterways
National Bargee Travellers Association
30, Silver St, Reading, Berkshire, RG1 2ST
0118 321 4128
secretariat@bargee-traveller.org.uk
www.bargee-traveller.org.uk
NBTA General Meeting 2017
This meeting is to decide what the NBTA does in general.
This will be on the Saturday 18 November in Watford at West Watford Community Association, 15 Harwoods Road, Watford, WD18 7RB. Registration starts 12.30pm, the General Meeting ends at 8pm. There are going to be breaks in-between, including lunch .
Legal Rights Meeting 6th November 2014
For a number of reasons, the legal rights meeting planned for tonight is severely oversubscribed. We have been overwhelmed by the response and if everyone who has booked turns up, it will simply not be possible for everybody to get in.
However, we are doing everything we can to make sure that we get the information to as many people as possible. We are planning a second meeting for the new year, in a much bigger venue. Also, we are going to broadcast the meeting on Ustream for anybody who cannot make it. This will also be available online after the meeting.
The meeting is scheduled to start at 7pm. To watch the live broadcast, go to http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nbtalondon
Radical Housing Network
To many of us in the NBTA, it has become increasingly clear that the issues that we face as boaters are far from unique. The more we see of the problems facing people living on land, be they council tenants, private tenants or owner-occupiers, the more we realise how much we have in common.
Because of the common threats we face, we have become affiliated to the Radical Housing Network. This group brings together a wide range of groups campaigning to protect the right to be housed, as well as people exploring the possibilities of co-operative housing development and other alternative models.
We have seen the same issues time and time again, and these are issues that affect boaters too. The rapid development of luxury waterside apartments across London is accompanied by the creation of permanent moorings that reduce the space for continuous cruisers, who are forced to move further afield. This mirrors the regeneration happening on land, resulting in 45,000 families being moved out of their borough in the past five years.
We believe that our position is stronger if we can call upon the solidarity of all those groups engaged in similar campaigns to defend their rights and their homes. In the coming weeks and months, we will be posting articles here exploring the background to the challenges we all face, whether living on the land or on the water.
What’s that bad smell coming from Islington?
In the London borough of Islington, there have been more restrictions to boaters pushed by the Council. It has been argued by Sukky Choongh-Campbell, the Air Quality Officer at Islington Council that the trial period for Islington visitor moorings should be ‘extended to all parts of the canal in Islington’. It was also argued that the trial period, which took place earlier this year, should be introduced permanently.
Continue reading What’s that bad smell coming from Islington?
Privatisation with a Needy Smile: a CaRT History
The Canal and River Trust have recently made a further move towards enclosure of the London waterways, by attempting to define “place” with the use of boundaries and labels on maps. Intended only as “guidance” for continuous cruisers who may be unsure of how far they need to move every 14 days in order to be using their boats bona fide for navigation. Many new boaters may agree that this is a useful tool to help them stay on the right side of CaRT, but the more seasoned continuous cruiser may argue the necessity. Within a short while of living on the cut and moving around in our floating coffins, one gets a clear sense of locality. An ethereal definition of “place” emerges naturally as the sum of our individual experiences.
Continue reading Privatisation with a Needy Smile: a CaRT History
The 14 Day Rule
Boaters may have received two letters from CRT recently, posted direct to their boats. One, dated 8 August 2014, states “The canals and rivers in London have seen a 36% rise in boat numbers over the last five years to 2,964 boats in March 2014. In the past year alone, overall numbers have increased by 14%, while numbers of continuous cruisers in East London has [sic] increased by 85%.”
National Bargee Travellers Association - London Branch 