Small part of formidable legal challenge
IN YOUR Friday article 'CaRT loses Section 8 Case' reporting on the High Court judgement handed down on Thursday, only a small part of the formidable legal challenge against British Waterways/Canal and River Trust is highlighted, writes Del Brenner.
Narrowboatworld should be congratulated on being on the ball with breaking news, but the accompanying photo in the article is out of date. It shows the dock tug Major running off the Thames in West London and entering a clear, uncluttered mouth of the River Bent that leads to the Grand Union Canal.
Thrown off
The channel is only uncluttered by moorings, because British Waterways had previously thrown off some long-established boats using its so-called ‘powers' under Section 8. These beleaguered boaters are also involved in a long- running legal challenge, just as Nigel Moore is with his mooring further up the Brent.
(Note: With these long-running legal cases, the High Court will continue in the future to refer to the respondent as ‘British Waterways', while recognising that all the responsibilities and liabilities are transferred to Canal & River Trust.)
Unfair tricks and dubious motives?
It is no wonder that there is so much support for the challenge against British Waterways, because having got rid of the original moored boats without proven rights to do so, the then British Waterways in partnership with the developers of the waterside, installed a pontoon and moorings for dozens of other boats.
The more up-to-date photo shows coal boat Archimedes and butty Ara running off the Thames into the mouth of the Brent, but with many boats having arrived along the bank and the width of the channel restricted.
Money not well spent
The ‘Section 8' article also refers to the matter of costs in Nigel Moore's case, and this raises no end of dissension about the hundreds of thousands of public funds that are being misappropriated by the waterway authorities to do down a few individuals in what is seen as a most draconian manner. As has been heard said many times: "What on earth is British Waterways up to?"
Liabilities dumped on the community
Unfortunately, the millions (because legal proceedings are very costly) are not noticed by many people. At the moment there are over 1,000 legal cases running, mostly as a British Waterway Board legacy handed on to the Canal & River Trust. The majority of these are County Court cases for recovering debts and the like, but there is more than a handful of major litigations that are long-running, very much more complex, and mega costly.
Has CaRT really got to grips with what is going on in the courts, and what serious encumbrances and financial liabilities they are lumbered with? The trouble is, it is not ‘they' any more, its us who are lumbered with the ruinous British Waterways legacy.