Monday, 21 February 2011

Moving the Lea & Stort goalposts

People love to debate the nature of continous cruising, as any glancing look at a well-known canal forum will prove (and I've no interest in repeating them here). But we all know - or thought we knew - the basics - move on after fourteen days. That's the only bit that I think appears in legislation; the 7 day & 48 hour moorings are more of a BW whim, and arguably challengable in the courts.

However, that could all change. Recent proposals by BW (a scan of which is visible here), want to split the entirity of the L&S into six 'neighbourhoods' and insisting boats move between these defined 'neighbourhoods' every fourteen days, a proportion of these being limited to seven day moorings. The map within the document makes a mockery of the word 'neighbourhood', naturally.

Next battle in the war on boaters; wardens measuring the shininess or otherwise of your paintwork and fining you accordingly, and maximum permissible area of blue tarp...

1 comment:

Neil Corbett said...

Hmmm I take your point but on the other hand how can BW make sure the canal doesn't become merely a linear mooring park, where cruising boats have nowhere to stop.

I suspect it's all irrelevant really because overstay notices etc seem to have no effect on people who choose to settle permanently at a particular spot. Take for example the "visitor" moorings at Camden and Islington, and to a lesser extent Victoria Park. They are virtually always taken up by continuous moorers who seem to have no regard for the need of cruising boats to have places to stay overnight. I'm all for live and let live but sometimes it seems a one sided approach.

Rant over :-)