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Elizabeth Swann contemplates the guidelines
for boats without a home mooring. |
Unless you are a regular boater on the southern Grand Union canal
you may know nothing about a recent consultation affecting the local boating
community in the South East of England.
The idea was to “to improve compliance with visitor mooring
rules,” and “to improve the chances of boaters finding space to tie up when
they arrive.” In practice it meant changing many popular mooring sites from the
14 days usually permitted stay, to only two days.
I returned my feedback form commenting on four sites in my
local area. I think the current time limits are reasonable for these four
locations. Various boaters’ discussions on Facebook have expressed
concern that people who live on their boats without a home mooring may be
forced to move greater distances, more often, making it much more difficult to
reach jobs, schools, healthcare and other commitments.
I do not think that altering time limits at visitor moorings
will stop people overstaying if they are the ‘type’ to overstay. I think the
law that stipulates 14 days is a fair one for all canal users.
I have lived and travelled on a boat for 12 years, usually
travelling in summer and stopping on a paid temporary winter mooring each
winter. I now have a permanent mooring. I have never been unable to moor up in
my chosen location upon arrival. I have travelled the Lea, Stort, London canals
and Grand Union up to Cheddington.
If a popular visitor mooring is occupied upon arrival I
simply choose a nearby towpath mooring instead. I believe this is the ‘luck of
the draw’, as when searching for your ideal parking space with a car. These proposals
seem to favour hire boats and holiday makers over people who live aboard.
This is my personal opinion. But I also wrote an article in
this month’s
Towpath Talk summarising the varied responses from different boaters
in the area, including a canal artist, a boat broker, The National Association
of Boat Owners and live-aboard boaters with and without moorings.
Allan Richards made a Freedom of Information Request to the
Canal and River Trust asking how many complaints had been received about difficulties finding mooring space at these 22 locations.
The reply was that throughout the whole of 2011 and 2012 no
complaints were received about failure to find space at any of the locations CRT wish to change.
Speculations and theories are now widely debated in online
discussion forums as to the ‘real’ reasons for the proposals. If no one has complained about the difficulty
finding mooring space then who or what is driving the need for change? There is
an on-going assumption by some people that boats without a home mooring are a
problem. While some of them certainly overstay beyond their 14 days the vast
majority keep to the guidelines and move on to the next place.
“The code is more what you'd call "guidelines" than
actual rules. Welcome aboard the Black Pearl, Miss Turner.”
Captain Barbossa, Pirate of the Caribbean
