As has been predicted many times CaRT are making life as hard as they can for continuous cruisers, writes John Coxon.
Well the bird might just about be coming home to roost?
Increasing licence fee
Not only increasing our licence fee without any real provable reasoning other than to punish us for being on the canals in the winter, but now taking our service facilities away and stating a lame excuse as the reason!
The excuse that they cannot fulfil the government's directive is very weak indeed. If they really wanted to, they could place all the recycling bins required in most of the areas they have. Okay, it may mean they have to reduce the amount of general waste bins but that could be overcome with more regular emptying and a proactive method of stopping locals fly-tipping in them.
The situation is becoming more and more of a problem for continuous cruisers. Having to travel further and further between service sites when travel can be very restricted due to various factors many of which are of CaRT's own making? We can't even take it to a council tip as most will not let you in if you do not have a local post-code and many will not allow pedestrians in at all.
Health and wellbeing
This situation is producing problems that relate to the health and wellbeing of continuous cruisers?
Not being able to obtain fresh water or empty Elsan cassettes, having to keep smelly, rotting rubbish on board for long periods in very hot weather attracting rats, insects and other vermin.
It is not unusual for a continuous cruiser to spend eight to ten weeks between service points now. We don't want to be rushing from one service point to the next every week. On the canal I'm on at the moment the distance between two rubbish/Elsan points is now around 20 miles.
The canal is very popular both summer and winter and the rubbish bins fill up very quickly. Only a very short time ago there was provision half way between these two points for water, rubbish and Elsan disposal but not any more, it's all gone.
If one of these Elsan points is out of order, and a not unusual state now-a-days, then this really presents the boater with a major problem, re: no toilet facility until they travel what could amount to several days to the next one!
Many weeks to service points
It can take a continuous cruiser many weeks to travel between service points now. We also tend to stay out of the more popular mooring spots and only visit them when needed, e.g. water, rubbish etc. It is now becoming more and more apparent that some continuous cruisers are mooring in these spots for extended time periods due to the loss of facilities and the distances they need to travel to get to the next one.
One has to ask if CaRT are fulfilling their duty of care to continuous cruisers? They charge us extra for licences then proceed to remove the essential services that are needed by us for normal heath, welfare and hygiene purposes.
If this situation carries on and more and more rubbish bins are removed then we will just have to start leaving our rubbish at the place where the bins were or perhaps some other convenient place.
I have tried to reduce the amount of rubbish I accumulate but because supermarkets wrap everything in so much plastic it's not easy. Food waste now goes into the canal or the hedge, it helps stop vermin but does not eliminate it!
Driven to fly tipping
We don't want to fly-tip but are being driven to it by CaRT's short sited penny-pinching policies. Perhaps when they find a mountain of rubbish at one or two of their old bin sites, or thrown into their work-boats as we pass they might just get the message...or knowing them...perhaps not? At least we'll not be carrying it about any more.
There will be no point in them trying to bring in rules or requests not to do this because they will just be ignored as we are being put into a position where we have no choice any more.