CaRT not a social landlord

WITH respect to the ongoing, and yet to be sensibly settled debate about abuse of the Cart licensing system I find myself unusually at odds with Allan Richards, writes Geoff Low.

The petition on the 32 degrees website including 'CART needs to accept it's responsibilities as a landlord' shows that an element of licence holders think that CaRT is some kind of social landlord.

Nothing to do with CaRT

CaRT is a navigation authority pure and simple, we can gripe and moan about save the voles or cyclists motorways but these items are insignificant compared to itinerant boat owners claiming ‘rights' in the same way as housing association tenants. Solving the country's housing problems has nothing to do with CaRT, no more than it does with seagoing marinas, motorway service stations or caravan holiday camps.

The comment about ‘key' workers who may live on boats is beneath contempt, do they have more rights than Sainsburys shelf stackers? Work that one out for yourselves.

Patently ridiculous

Over 5,000 of 35,000 licence holders claiming to be continuous cruisers is patently ridiculous, CaRT have created this situation by not seriously checking licence applications. Would it be unreasonable to ask an applicant the following? Do you have a permanent job, and where. Do you have kids living on board and are they registered with a school?

There are a serious number of people taking the p-ss here and CaRT is too stupid to suss them out with a sensible licence application form. My own best guess is that they thrive on the complexity, which they will then use as a job creation scheme.