Who cares?
THE '14 days' term enshrined in the 1995 Waterways Act, and interpreted with much ado and in ever-decreasing circles by CaRT, is something that very few people indeed care about, writes Suzanne MacLeod.
Government doesn't care; local authorities don't care; the police don't care; the general public neither know nor care. Because so few care about it, I suggest that everyone just forgets about it. Leave it gathering dust in the statute book, by all means, but otherwise forget it.
Who cares?
Firstly, CaRT. I suppose it has a statutory duty to enforce the law. Might be wrong about that. Perhaps it is a police matter, after all. Appreciate clarification, should anyone know or care. The CaRT enforcement group, of course, has a vested interest in caring: it's a living for them.
I imagine that it's a burden of duty that CaRT would get rid of in an instant if they could. To a degree, they have: volunteers and boating stooges are one handy 'arm's-length' way of detecting law-breaking and devolving the task of dealing with the towpath hassle, conflict and unhappiness associated with enforcing the Act and its ever-shifting manifestations in the form of local visitor mooring restrictions.
Cropped up yet again
The corridors of CaRT Towers must echo with the continual groans of well-meaning employees whose time has been purloined yet again by the need to deal with Boater Bill, or whomever, whose clapped-out but licenced vessel-home has cropped up yet again, overstaying for months in some harmless corner of the back of beyond. Whole thing's a burden and a cost that we could all save ourselves, just like that.
Secondly, there are all those affected adversely by the chronically 14 days overstaying boater. I don't count just being cheesed off because you're a law-abiding, licence-paying boater, and it's so unfair that others go unpunished for technical overstaying. Or canalside householders whose view of the countryside has been partially obstructed by that damned barge since—ooh—years ago.
Another nearby spot
Or even passing boaters who would quite like the opportunity to moor in a particular spot, are unable to because an overstaying boat is still there, but who after all find another nearby spot easily enough. In the end, I'm talking mainly about the environmental crime of 'appropriation' by a very few long-term moorers of the bank, towpath or hedgerow who cause an obstruction to other towpath users or use the area beside their boat for extensive storage and/or dumping of belongings or rubbish. I haven't come across many cases, but that's the only mooring-related malfeasance that I care about.
If local authorities and others did pay due attention to the tiny aquatic itinerant population on their patch, they could (rightly) claim that non-residential long-term moorers enjoy free services such as police, fire fighters, libraries, swimming pools and so on to which the conventional resident contributes through council tax. I for one wouldn't mind a precept for such services being added to my waterways licence fee. It would be just and right. I'm not overjoyed at this small item of free-loading I 'get away with'. Show me who to pay, and I'll pay.
Our English and Welsh statute book is replete with laws that no-one ever cares to enforce, that it's not even worth repealing or amending, and the 1995 Act could be one of them. 14 days? Who cares? Seriously?