Tag Archives: License

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Resisting CRT’s controversial Surcharge with a Licence Strike

May 13, 2024 stopboatlicencediscrimination 4 Comments

Stop The Surcharge Campaign members are organising ahead of a Licence Strike. They are asking anyone interested in striking to sign up to the Licence Strike Group – tinyurl.com/licencestrike. Strikers will refuse to pay CRT’s new class of licence fee in protest against an ever-increasing additional charge for boaters who do not want, or cannot afford or find a home mooring.

The strength of this protest action is it has real leverage – a real financial and administrational impact on CRT. The new ‘Continuous Cruiser’ fee is perceived within the community as an attempt to incrementally price itinerant boaters off the waterways. Once enough people sign up to the Licence Strike, if CRT doesn’t back down a strike will be called. A coordinated Licence Strike will have a significant impact on CRT, overloading their enforcement team and costing them dearly.

Early signs are strong. Leafleting and promotion has only begun and already over 300 boaters have signed up. Strike organisers have indicated that the number of strikers are growing of their own accord:

“Boaters can see how divisive and unfair the Surcharge is and they want to strike – some are striking already. The intent is already there in the community – all we’ve had to do is facilitate it as a viable protest action. Our job is to make the strike effective and safe for boaters. There are legal protections we can incorporate. There is protection in numbers. Already more than 300 hundred boaters have signed up, and there’s an entire community behind them.”

“Boaters are being charged unfairly every time they renew a licence. CRT almost certainly aim to increase the surcharge beyond what they have stated so far and destroy our community, and boaters know this. The number of strikers will only grow. Once we have enough interest we will call a ballot and strike. CRT have left us with little choice – take action or they will end our community. We must take collective action to stop the ‘surcharge’. “

Stop the ‘surcharge’ by signing up to the License Strike Group – go to tinyurl.com/licencestrike and complete the signup form. There will be a full description of the strike action and a full ballot to members and boaters before any strike action is taken.

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

Article, Campaigns, Housing, Newsletter

A history of the collective fight for our homes

May 13, 2024 stopboatlicencediscrimination Leave a comment

The fight to defend our homes is far from new. For as long as land and water are privatised and our right to live on those lands and waters are restricted by private, often for-profit landlordism, people have always fought for our right to live.

In UK’s modern history, we saw this over a century ago when in 1915 the women of Glasgow resisted increases in rent prices. They formed a women’s housing association and in May 1915 some 25,000 Glaswegians joined a rent strike that eventually pressured the government to pass the Rent Restriction Act.

Statue of 1915 Govan Rent Strike Organiser, Mary Barbour, in Glascow

Unfortunately, the rent controls were reversed and another major wave of rent strikes came in the 1930s, when the working classes of London, Birmingham, Huddersfield, Liverpool, Aberdeen, Sunderland, Oxford and Sheffield seized power into their own hands and took strike action, demanding rent reductions as well as overdue repairs. Some tenants fought against intimidation, evictions and violence from bailiffs and police for months. Rent controls were reintroduced with the outbreak of the Second World War, followed by the Rent Act of 1957.

But as the government began inflicting vicious austerity programmes and privatised public housing over the past few decades, the UK has further plunged into increasingly acute housing crises.

This may not be surprising to us, as many boaters may have chosen to live aboard because living on land simply became too expensive. But with much of our waterways remaining under the control of the Canal and River Trust who have unilateral power to set license fees, we are again seeing what happens when the cost to literally live in our homes become unbearable.

But if history tells us anything, it is that we the people have power. More recently, in 2022 we saw this in action with the #DontPay campaign where families across the country pledged to withhold paying unjustly high costs for energy, which contributed to the government’s decision to offer some – if still inadequate – controls and support for households.

While too many decisions impacting our lives are made by just a handful of individuals, we have the power to resist and push for change. Affordable living should be the bare minimum, and beyond that we must continue fighting towards a commons where we all have the voice and power over our homes, our lives and futures.

Article, News, Newsletter

We must continue to fight the Surcharge

May 13, 2024 stopboatlicencediscrimination Leave a comment

Last April Fool’s Day was the beginning of the Canal & River Trust (CRT) charging boats for not having a home mooring. However, this is no April Fool’s joke!

If this goes unchallenged, it will just be the beginning of CRT using the price of a licence to get rid of boats without home moorings. Each year, the price for boats without home moorings will go up more than for boats with a home mooring. In 2002 British Waterways (the predecessor to CRT) proposed to charge boats without home moorings 250% more than boats with moorings. If we let CRT get away with this, there is nothing to stop it from pricing us off the waterways. CRT has always wanted to get rid of our way of life and this could be the way it achieves its goal. We must not let CRT price us off the waterways.

Most boaters are against this differential licence pricing. CRT’s own survey showed that over 97% of boat owners without home moorings were against the charge and 60% of all boaters preferred options that didn’t charge people for not having a home mooring.

The NBTA, IWA, NABO and others have made efforts to explain to CRT that charging for not having a home mooring is discriminatory, unjustified and unwanted. This has not changed CRT’s mind. CRT will simply not be persuaded by words. Each time, CRT’s arguments are shown to have no substance, just more cut and paste nonsense. We must use the leverage we have at our disposal to show CRT that its best option is to stop this so-called ‘surcharge’ on boats without home moorings.

So what leverage do we have?

Fundamentally, we need to make it more desirable for CRT to stop the ‘surcharge’ than to continue with it. To make it less desirable, we need to hit CRT where it hurts; by undermining its public image and its income.

The best means we have at our disposal to damage CRT’s income is to carry out a licence strike. However, for a licence strike to have an impact, we need relatively large numbers. At the moment, we don’t have the numbers. That’s why it is so important to express your interest in making it happen by clicking this link and signing up: http://tinyurl.com/licencestrike

Other than finances, the other thing CRT holds in high esteem is its public image. The whole premise of CRT’s existence is based on its “charity doing charitable work” public image, and of course its donations are linked to how people view it. This is why it spends millions of pounds on PR events and social media etc*. Therefore, as long as CRT continues with its plan to charge boats for not having a home mooring, we will work tirelessly to undermine its public image. Most of us don’t want to be undermining CRT but as this is one of the best tactics for leverage we have, we must!

We ask that people who are opposed to this discriminatory licence fee increase, join us in leafleting against CRT at the very events and stalls where CRT are trying to improve its public image. Some of us have already had great success and amazing public support in such actions at CRT events. Until CRT backs down, let’s use our leverage, let’s attend its events and stalls and let the public know what CRT is really about!

By using these methods of active influence, together we can stop the discriminatory licence fee increase!

To be involved in the campaign, please email: stopboatlicencediscrimination@gmail.com

*An example of millions spent by CRT on its public image is the £8 million last year on what it calls ‘Community engagement and participation’. CRT’s last financial report states that this comprises ‘engagement and events, strategy and planning, marketing and media.’ See pages 57-58 of the Canal & River Trust Annual Report & Accounts
2022/2023.

Article, Legal, News, Newsletter

CRT Makes Intentions for Travelling Boaters Clear with New Surcharge

February 21, 2024 stopboatlicencediscrimination Leave a comment

The latest power move from the CRT is the introduction of a 25% surcharge for boats without a home mooring, a devastating decision which unfairly targets our community of travelling boaters.

As some of us may remember, this is not the first time the CRT – or British Waterways before them – have attempted to implement what is essentially a punishment for living this lifestyle, each time giving a different reason for doing so. This time around, CRT stated that the reason for this surcharge is that they need more income and we use the waterways and the facilities more than those with home moorings, a bogus statement for which they have no evidence; it could even be argued that some holiday boaters travel a further distance than most itinerant boaters.

It seems somewhat hypocritical for the CRT to insist some of us to move more, then say it’s our use of the waterways that means we need to pay more. At the NBTA we believe the most honest reason behind these decisions was given in the 2000s by British Waterways, they said that there were too many boats without home moorings and this proposition of a surcharge would encourage people into moorings- which seems to us is what the CRT is attempting to do here too.

Their increased ‘no mooring’ zones, new chargeable moorings and now a surcharge points toward their deeply concerning intentions for our waterways. They claim they need the income from this surcharge, but it would generate less income per year than their two top earners take in a year. They claim this is about money yet they spend hundreds of thousands enforcing ‘safety zones’.

Before now no waterways authority has ever claimed that we should be charged more to generate income, we assume because it would generate an inconsequential amount, it is no different this time. The CRT is chronically mismanaged, they could generate other much more profitable streams of income if they wanted to. This is not about the money they might make from a surcharge, this is about the gentrification of our waterways, they want to physically restrict our moorings and eventually charge us out of our homes, we are undesirable and not profitable to them.

This decision fundamentally discriminates against our already marginal community. Similarly to the ‘safety’ zones, if we fight we can be a force to be reckoned with. This battle is larger than the ‘safety’ zones, please get involved.

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National Demo against the Surcharge in Birmingham

February 20, 2024 stopboatlicencediscrimination Leave a comment

On a crisp winter’s day in November, over one hundred boaters from across UK waterways descended on the Canal and River Trust’s Birmingham office. Boaters from all over, from Macclesfield canal, Birmingham canals, to Kennet and Avon canal, Monmouth and Brecon canal to River Lea and many more waterways unified to protest against CRT’s discriminatory licence fee surcharge. A few boats with banners joined us outside the office, which was really fantastic to see, and we were able to get the story into several press outlets too.

The demo was a great success and showed CRT that we will not stand by and allow them to threaten our way of life. Thank you to everyone who came or supported from afar!