Inland waterway liscensing questions.

[pjl83]

Hi All,

When I had boats before on the inland waterways I remember that they had to be licensed and insured. I also remember that there was a length of boat at which this law applied.......

If I am correct in what I've said above, then does anybody know what the maximum length can be before you need a license by law. Also, does this mean that insurance would be optional too?

Thanks
Paul

[Mike]

Paul

For using British Waterways (rivers and/or canals), you need a licence irrespective of the length of your boat. The minimum licence fee is in the 'up to 18 feet' category, so a little dinghy may not be exempt - unless it is very simple. Here's a flowchart that shows you whether or not your boat may be exempt.


589

The type of licence you will need depends upon your use of the waterways and not upon the boat you have. The length of your boat will impact only upon the cost of the licence.

You can find more details here (http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/license-it). Incidentally, the fishing will be rubbish compared to the sea!

Regards

[pjl83]

Thanks Mike,

Just the info I was looking for ;)

[Mike]

No problem, Paul. On insurance, I think you must have third party insurance cover of at least £1 milion.

[Bruce Peckett]

Adding on the end of a slightly stale thread but worth noting that British Waterways don't control *all* the inland waterways. Some river navigations (Thames, Nene, Ouse etc.) come under the Environment Agency, the Norfolk Broads are not covered by either and then there's a bunch of other minor bits run by other organisations

So having a BW licence is not a carte blanche to go anywhere inland.

Depending on the type of boat, it's worth checkng the British Canoe Union out. If you qualify for membership they have an arrangement whereby BCU members don't need a BW licence to use BW waters (excepting the use of locks IIRC)

Bru

[Mike]

Thanks for the addition to this subject, Bruce, and welcome aboard.

You are quite correct, of course, and may I add that this hodge podge of waterway control and licensing seems to me bizarre, as does the whole concept of 'ownership' of rivers according to who owns the adjacent land. I would have thought in this day and age that all our navigable rivers (perhaps canals too) ought to be under public ownership with the rights through licensing controlled by one, very simple, public authority.

In other parts of the world, indeed in other parts of this United Kingdom, access to waterways is the right of anyone. I accept there needs to be control of use and protection, but I see no valid reason to continue with a system that allows a privileged few to tell the vast majority to 'clear off' - or worse still, to prosecute under trespass laws.

I suppose it is possible the way things are going that we will eventually need a license to breathe English air. :escape:

Best wishes

[Bruce Peckett]

Ah well, can of worms is this and no mistake!

The situation today is the result of history ... thousands of years of history! Hmm, this might take a while, are you sitting comfortably? :-)

Firstly, riparian rights aren't the same as navigation rights.

For natural watercourses, unless defined otherwise by treaty, deed etc., the bed of the watercourse is, by ancient custom and usage, owned by the adjacent landowners with the boundary down the centre (which can lead to some interesting arguments about where the centre is on a fast flowing meandering river that keeps changing its course a bit every year). This is riparian ownership (or rights).

It is interesting ... or to qualify that it is interesting to me at any rate ... to note that ancient roads, even those in use today, which existed before the parish inclosures of the 17th and 18th centuries, are often the same in that the land is owned by one or more landowners despite the fact that there's a public highway atop of it.

This all dates back, in essence, to the Norman period during which land ownership became enshrined in law (as opposed to the Saxon period when it was yours if you had a bigger sword than the other bloke).

Navigation rights, including the power to build locks and wiers, alter the course of the river etc. arose out of acts of parliament one (or more) being required for each navigation. The same applied to canals except that in the case of canals ownership of the land was included whereas with rivers it rarely was.

Thus each navigable river and every canal had it's own act or acts of parliament to empower its promoters to build the navigation and run it. Navigable rivers were usually built and operated by Commissioners - the Thames, the Nene, etc. each had it's own body of the great and good (and these people often were motivated by good intentions). Likewise, each canal was owned and operated by an independent canal company. The Oxford Canal, for example, was largely owned by the Oxford colleges and its directors were mostly Oxford Dons (which probably accounts for it being one of the less dynamic canal companies!).

There were dozens and dozens of canal companies - in the early days a trip on a Pickfords fly boat (a non stop express parcels service operating to a daily schedule that would put Parcel Farce to shame) from London to Birmingham would have involved travelling over the Grand Junction Canal, the Napton and Warwick Canal and the Warwick and Birmingham Canal with, just to add spice, a short stretch of the Oxford Canal thrown in between Braunston and Napton. Each of the canals would have levied its own tolls at rates prescribed in its act of parliament.

In the 1920's there was, as there was on the railways around the same time, a move to amalgamate the various little companies into a smaller number of large companies. Thus came into being the Grand Union Canal Company which took over all three of the canals between London and Birmingham (except the short stretch of the Oxford - the tolls from which kept the Oxford company in profit throughout its history) plus the canal leading off it towards Leicester. The River Soar Navigation became part of the canal company extinguishing the body of commissioners.

Then in the post war nationalisation frenzy most, but not all, of the canals were take into state ownership along with the railways (some of the canals were already owned by railway companies but that's another story). Famously, the new head of the Transport Commission when asked what his plans for the canals might be replied "oh, do we get them too?"! After a disastrous period of mismanagement, the British Waterways Board was created to take over the canals and some, but not all, of the navigable rivers.

BWB later evolved into plain British Waterways which is currently a quango (quasi-autonomous national government body) but which is about to evolve again into something different the shape of which we're not entirely clear on as yet (sort of a National Trust for the waterways as far as we can make out - not necessarily a good thing)

Meanwhile, on the rivers the creation of the Water Boards often led to the demise of the river commissioners with the new board taking over the rights and powers over the navigation. Later, this function transferred to the Environment Agency.

Throughout all this, there were a number of canals and rivers that never came under state control. The Chelmer and Blackwater Canal including Heybridge Basin in Essex remained independent until just a few years ago. The Commissioners for the Navigation threw in the towel claiming the navigation was a dead loss financially and it looked like curtains until the IWA stepped in and took over ownership. Now being managed by a subsidiary company of the charity, it's coming back to life. The Bridgewater Canal is still owned by a company called Peel Holdings who also own the Manchester Ship Canal. The Upper and Lower Avon navigations are operated by the trusts that restored them to navigation. And so on.

And thus we come to the situation today. It's a bit of a mess really and none too easy to sort out. EA have always steadfastly resisted any suggestions of transferring their navigation functions to BW claiming that they need total control of the rivers they manage for flood control and environmental reasons. In my opinion, this is a crock of male bovine droppings. The real reason, I rather suspect, is that with the loss of navigation functions would inevitably come a reduction in state funding.

After years of pressure, BW and EA did finally agree a to create a "gold" licence permitting navigation on all their waterways albeit at a fairly steep price.

I gather that part of the propsals for replacing British Waterways may involve the new body finally taking over the navigation responsibilites of EA. We may, at last, see the canals and navigable rivers, apart from a few independents, under the control and managament of a body not at all dissimilar to the National Waterways Conservancy proposed by IWA founder Robert Aickman more than 60 years ago!

Now when it comes to the thorny issue of access to rivers, I will admit to having mixed feelings. I'm not, I should state, a great fan of the open access provisions of the Countryside and Rights of Way Act 2000 (which in another guise as the then Rights of Way Officer of the Green Lane Association I was involved in opposing due to its detrimental impact on ancient public rights over highways and byways). Whilst it seems, on the face of it, reasonable that people should be able to have access to the countryside, unfettered access creates difficulties. CROW 2000 was predicated by the usual socialist view of the countryside as a great empty space populated by rich posh people with nothing better to do than tell poor innocent working class townies to "get orft my land". I exagerate it's true but only slightly.

In truth, most of the countryside is a vast factory and often a bloody dangerous one too. Fields, trees, hedgerows and watercourses are managed by farmers and landowners to whom must go full credit for creating England's green and pleasant land. Specifically, in the case of water courses, the fishing rights are often lucrative and carefully managed and there is no getting away from the fact that navigation will have an impact on fishing (not neccessarily a negative one but that's another debate altogether). On some of the best rivers, a mile of fishing rights might easily be worth a kings ransom and one can understand the desire of the owners of such rights to protect their nest egg.

Hence my mixed feelings. Naturally, I'd like to be able to go wherever I like whether by boat, on foot or, and here's a really contentious issue, by vehicle. But I accept that it is not always possible or right for me to be able to do so. After all, I would not be at all happy if a bunch of cagoule wearing hikers tramped through my veg beds at the bottom of my garden so complaining about a farmer wanting to keep people out of his 40 acre wheat field is really just a form of inverted snobbery :-)

Hmm, time for more coffee!

Cheers
Bru

[Clip]

Not meaning to crowd the replies here, but it did occur to me that my hero Mr. CanoeHead
644
may have to get a license to fight crime in the UK?

[George Waite]

Mike
You already pay tax on it if you are a diver! (fresh air) As for licensing its all about control and revenue and sod all about responsible behavior.

[Mike]

Peter
Enjoyed that one, thanks. ;)

George
Yeah, I agree. However, when are we gunna do something about that? It ain't the way it's supposed to be. And waiting for our pollies to get off their fat behinds and do something about it would have to be a sign of incomprehensible hopefulness, if not total insanity.

Who on earth can we vote for in May? Are they not all tarred with the same old brush? Is it time for a new party. One thing's for sure: I ain't voting for the BNP. That kinda leaves me with things like the Greens (oh dear!) or the Monster Raving Loonies, etcetera (oh dear again!).

Talking with my lawyer yesterday, he said something along the lines of: "In this day and age of us all iving in such close proximity on this overcrowded little island, we just have to find ways to get along with each other."

I replied: "Why do you think I want to build a live aboard boat?" Just how many of us out there actually feel the same way I do not know but I, for one, am pretty close to total, abject despair at the way things have been going.

Perhaps this is a function of the aging process and I am just way out of step with the rest of the world in the way I think and feel. In other words, maybe I am become a Grumpy Old Man. :grandpa:

[Bruce Peckett]

Mr. Canoehead will be fine, he just needs to join the British Canoe Union! Few quid a year, go anywhere (near enough)

I should have taken the chance offered to me nigh on 30 years ago and emigrated. Could've moved to Canada, New Zealand, Australia or even Saudia Arabia all expenses paid by the company I'd served my apprenticeship with.

Not long married, baby on the way, just bought a house, just formed a new band with ambitions for the big time (it never happened of course!) etc. etc. meant we passed up what, with hindsight, was a golden opportunity. Ah well, what's done is done. Maybe our number will come up on the lottery this weekend!

ATB
Bru

[Mike]

Mr. Canoehead will be fine, he just needs to join the British Canoe Union! Few quid a year, go anywhere (near enough).Sounds practical to me, Bruce. As a kayaker myself, though, I found it more interesting to paddle the seas rather than rivers and canals. Each to his own. :)

I should have taken the chance offered to me nigh on 30 years ago and emigrated.Having been dragged out to Australia with my parents (twice, I might add), I do understand far away fields seeming greener. My own experience is that Australia is a wonderful country. However, it has its huge drawbacks, not the least of which is its non-indigenous population. Generally speaking, I find so-called white Australians are, as is rumoured far and wide, well balanced in having a chip on BOTH shoulders. The Aborigines I knew were, by way of stark contrast, beautiful people in complete harmony with their environment. And it was, and still is, very much their environment. White people don't prosper there without living as near as possible to the oceans or with air conditioning. I do not think, Bruce, you would prosper there, though you do have one advantage I didn't have in that your Christian name would stand you in good stead! Heh heh.

My view is that you may have fared well in Kiwiland. Dunno about Canada but too darned cold for my liking.


Not long married, baby on the way, just bought a house, just formed a new band with ambitions for the big time (it never happened of course!) etc. etc. meant we passed up what, with hindsight, was a golden opportunity. Ah well, what's done is done. Maybe our number will come up on the lottery this weekend!Come on mate. Don't look back with any regrets. You do the best you can and what you think is right at the time. Can't do any more than that, really.

Let's form a revolutionary party and fix up things here in what was once our green and pleasant land (you spoke of that yourself in another thread, remember?). There's so much needs doing here to get this country up off its knees and make it what it was not that long ago. And it needs people like you and me and others here to keep chipping away at that concrete block that stands in our way.

What shall we call this new party, guys 'n gals? Think I might consider offering a small prize for the best name. If you are up for it, start a new thread with an appropriate title and fire away.

Best wishes

[George Waite]

Mike
Veritas
George

[Mike]

Veritas
GeorgeHa ha ha, George, you crack me up sometimes, mate! :rofl:

I take it this is your offering as to the name for the aforementioned 'new party'? If so, I like it. But I did say, start a new thread with appropriate title. I suppose you want me to do it for you, do you? Ha hahahah. :drunk2:

I have always said you are a man of few words, George, but just three really does take the biscuit.

[Bruce Peckett]

I should say I have no regrets about passing up the opportunity to emigrate. Looking back, maybe we should have taken the chance when it was on offer but we made a decision at the time on the basis of what we knew and felt then and that's all that one can do in life.

Australia didn't appeal at all - how they can dare talk about wingeing beats me, nobody can winge like an Aussie after they've been beaten by England (again) at Rugger!

ATB
Bru

[Mike]

Too true, cobber! :laie_67: