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 Bargee Travellers Association - London Branch 