The Floater July 2017

July 2017 - C&RT's launch of of its Annual Report on 24 July, some 12 weeks after its financial year end, is a drab affair. In previous years we have been treated to web pages filled with multicoloured charts and graphs. This year we have just a monochrome press release which attempts to deflect from the Trust's failures by concentrating on supposed successes over its first five years. Allan Richards unspins a small sample of the more fanciful claims by reference to C&RT's Annual Report, previous Annual Reports and published board papers.

July 2017 - In one of the few pieces of positive news to come from the Lancaster Canal it seems the Canal & River Trust has agreed to Colin Ogden and his fast-growing Owd Lanky Boaters Group adopting an abandoned lock flight, Peter Underwood reports.

The Trust seems to have acknowledged that Colin Ogden's Owd Lanky Boaters Group is an active and effective restoration body on the Lancaster Canal by agreeing it can adopt the first lock flight of the abandoned Northern Reaches at Tewitfield and Colin has praised the Trust's swift response.

July 2017 - Canal & River Trust's fifth birthday has come and gone with no fanfare. Even C&RT's marketing department, never short of a spurious story on such occasions, has remained silent. No self congratulation or stories with titles such as 'Our achievements - year by year'. Just silence. Allan Richards has been reviewing the major launch story from five years ago.

July 2017 - A Canal & River Trust London Mooring Ranger is proposing new restrictions that may see current mooring spaces removed on the lower part of the River Lea, writes Alec Wood.

The C&RT official has written a proposal outlining the removal of boats in places where the navigation is less than 18 metres (nearly 60 ft).

C&RT claims this is to aid rowers from two rowing clubs on the River Lea, although the current proposal would only affect the river near the Lea Rowing Club who use the stretch between Old Ford Lock in Hackney Wick and Tottenham Hale Lock.

July 2017 - Boater Paul Morris, who describes himself as Captain of LifeAfloat and gives his address as Coventry Canal, West Midlands, has launched a website designed to facilitate and encourage the rental of liveaboard boats and even buying boats to let them out, as Peter Underwood reports.

His new website has been launched hard on the heels of a Canal & River Trust crackdown on boat rentals and the introduction of a new static boat rental licence, as well as the promise to remove licences from boats rented out without the new licence.

July 2017 - Last year and this has seen the Environment Agency attempting to crack down on overstaying boats using public mooring sites on the Thames and the National Bargee Travellers' Association is attempting to work out what's happening, as Alec Wood reports.

The Thames is a hotch-potch of private, council and Environment Agency (EA) moorings that means boaters rarely know whether they will be charged for a night's mooring but in the last two years both local authorities and the EA have been trying get rid of liveaboard boaters in certain areas.

July 2017 - The minutes of a meeting about facilties for boaters in London, between a National Bargee Travellers delegation led by Marcus Trower and a group led by Matthew Symonds, C&RT's boating strategy and engagement manager have finally emerged three months later, as Peter Underwood reports.

Marcus Trower and the National Bargee Travellers Association (NBTA) in London have long been arguing that the Trust needed to keep existing water points, elsan disposals and rubbish bins in better order and invest in more.

July 2017 - Having previously offered to put our Allan Richards in contact with a member of a working group set up to look at the results of the 2016 Boat Owners’ Survey, Canal & River Trust now says it is unable to provide that persons name.

In fact, as Allan reports, the Trust is now unable to provide names of any members of the group. The U-turn follows a further information request.