CaRT U-turn on Roving Mooring Permits

THE Canal & River Trust (CaRT) has scrapped its plans to introduce Roving Mooring Permits at two locations on 1st April 2014, writes Allan Richards. It cites legal issues which have raised doubts about the practical implications of implementing the scheme.

Roving Mooring Permits

Roving Mooring Permits would have allowed some boaters without a home mooring to legally navigate within a restricted area contrary to CaRT's understanding of the 1995 Waterways Act.

Explaining the U-turn, the Trust states:

‘In preparing the final details of the proposed schemes we have had to consider whether the restriction of the availability of permits to a particular group, in a specific area, was legally sound. A significant risk was identified that we might then be obliged to offer them more widely across the system to all boaters. This was never our intention as we believe that the adoption of such a new national permit scheme is not desirable. We appreciate that the late realisation of this has been frustrating for all those involved'.

Since 2008

Incredible as it may seem British Waterways and now CaRT have been planning to introduce Roving Mooring Permits since 2008.

Now just three weeks before implementation of two pilots, it has abandoned the whole concept!