EA Short Stay Moorings Management

WoodyP

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It's an international thing which covers the entire globe for search and rescue, would rather defeat itself if it was chargeable.
As an early adopter of w3w I was given the opportunity to purchase shares. I don't think it was a scam, but didn't take up the offer. Perhaps if they do monetise the business then l would have been a millionaire Rodney..
As a previous employee of the EA it did used to stick in the craw that the boaters contribution in licence fees was only a proportion of the cost of providing the service. A safe mooring provided cost free is not to be sneezed at, and in my day free mooring was often abused. I was not in the Thames area btw.
 

Whitlock

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As an early adopter of w3w I was given the opportunity to purchase shares. I don't think it was a scam, but didn't take up the offer. ...
I bought £500 worth. It remains to be seen if they ever go public. If they do they might be worth something.
 
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If anyone still believes that the EA has made a sensible decision in contracting with District Enforcement Ltd to charge boaters £150 for minor mooring infringements - then please read this.
No doubt the EA has fallen for the usual DE contract - no charge for running the scheme but DE gets to keep all the revenue.
And, unlike private parking fines there is no statutory requirement for an independent appeals service.

Litter 'Stasi' forces 82-year-old granny to pay £100 for a bit of tissue that fell from her bag | Daily Mail Online
 

Whitlock

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Posted on Facebook:

"Response to EA appointing direct enforcement to manage moorings

Subject: EA Moorings

Dear Maria,

Thank you for your letter of the 27 November and the accompanying Qs and As.

Firstly we would like to emphasise that we see it as a core task of Waterways Thames to manage the EA short-term moorings effectively. This task should be seen as part of your enforcement teams responsibilities and not delegated to a contractor. Simply adding the words 'Welcome to' to what is a modified car parking sign does not build trust or confidence between the majority of law-abiding boaters – your targets should be the over-stayers – staying beyond 'a reasonable time'.

Commenting first on your letter:

Although you say answers have been provided by specialist lawyers there is little evidence that the claimed expertise in current EA legislation is warranted. The District Enforcement (DE) signs state that a MCN will apply in the event a boater fails to register their arrival for the first 24 hours. Neither the EA nor their contractor have any legal right to impose any charge in this period.

We are surprised that it appears that nearly all of the contractor's income is derived from issuing penalties for non-compliance. Similarly we are disappointed by the aggressive language used on the signs as this ignores all of earlier comments made when the signs were circulated for your brief 'consultation'.

The list of mooring sites which you have provided is seriously flawed. There is land you are claiming to be turning into additional visitor moorings which is patently not in your control, even if it is in your ownership, and in many cases is unsuitable for mooring. One example has a pub with recently rebuilt moorings at the upstream end and a recently rebuilt rowing club and landing stage at the downstream end, there is another where a lock lay by has become a visitor mooring. Further - DE appears to have uploaded your data to their website, without checking, with the result that many moorings are shown to be a long way from the river!

We are amazed you are satisfied with the performance data supplied by your contractor. In particular they report that 50% of the notices issued were subsequently withdrawn when challenged. This suggests a slapdash approach to the issue of notices and will result in honest, legally moored, boaters being put at significant effort to prove their innocence. While DE subscribes to an independent appeal procedure for its car parking business this has not been put in place for moorers. DE have advised that they will employ 100 people but we note that this number reflects their total staff numbers and not just those dedicated to the EA contract.

And on to the Qs and As:#

We support the comments in the RYA E-mail of 3 December and have the additional comments:

Q2. Your assertion about DE saving your staff time managing the mooring sites is risible as since January 2019 there has not been any management of the moorings by your staff or lawyers.

Q3. We are disappointed that you have chosen to ignore your obligations to consult with the users who contribute the most to Thames funding - boaters. The signatories to this letter and their organisations have between them given thousands of hours over many decades, in meetings and discussions with EA officers in a genuine attempt to help you. There was some consultation before the original 6 month DE enforcement trial in 2013 but DE's only activity was the processing of MCNs which they issued to boaters on the explicit instruction of EA staff who were responsible for monitoring moorings; boaters had to phone lock keepers to announce their arrival and duration of stay and lock keepers took payments for mooring when the boater transited the lock. Following the cessation of the previous arrangements in 2019 you were urged to “reintroduce similar arrangements at the earliest opportunity”. But you didn't. Boaters, the people with direct experience of the arrangements, said very clearly that they did not want an aggressive car parking regime. It is ironic that it seems those who contribute most to the EA funds are ignored.

Q4 Your final paragraph is incorrect. You have allowed DE to impose a penalty charge for the first 24 hours by sanctioning the imposition of a charge of £150 if the boater does not register their arrival. This is in exceeds your powers under the Thames Conservancy Act.

Q5 If Article 23 applies then so does 24 – the requirement to consult. In particular we challenge DE's ability to put a lien on legally moored boats.

Q6 You say “If a charge remained unpaid DE could ultimately go to court to recover it as a debt”. At TNUF Dyl Kurpil was asked how many cases DE had taken to court; how many had been heard and what were the resulting judgements”. He failed to give a direct answer to the question and records show that DE has rarely bothered to appear in court accepting that their case fails. Perhaps we could be advised of the judgements that had been heard and found in favour of DE to clarify this issue.

Q7 We are very concerned that DE have commenced work on this contract before you have published the protocols. We believe that mitigating conditions should be clearly displayed on the signs so that boaters can make informed decisions. Signs should clearly state that charges, most especially penalty charges, will not apply if the river is subject to yellow or red boards. It is not satisfactory to say that if someone gets a charge they can appeal. In the absence of this information a boater having reached the end of their allowed time on a mooring may well look at the river but feel they have no option but to move as it is a £150 charge if I don’t go now. If they are involved in a serious incident a subsequent enquiry is very likely to conclude that the EA were responsible for whatever damage or injuries were sustained.

Q8 You say that “The arrangements we are introducing with DE will be familiar to anyone who used any of our mooring sites when we had similar arrangements in place managed on our behalf by other companies , and which proved to be both popular, and effective”. This is disingenuous. As stated earlier you have never had arrangements like this before. The previous trials separated monitoring and enforcement. The model was to monitor and collect fees efficiently and encourage compliance and it was effective and very popular. We understand that the reason DE were successful in their bid was because the fee they required was significantly lower than any other contender. DE's website offers 'Our parking services business model involves ticketing vehicles subject to parking charges and pursuing outstanding charges through a range of specialised legal routes'. The bulk of their income is derived from successfully issuing penalty charges as clearly stated on their corporate web site. Separately there is still confusion as you say that there is no return for 72 hours, yet the signs which have been erected say no return for 24 hours – we hope the latter is the correct policy.

Q9 There is considerable doubt that the signage is legally binding. The absence of evidence of any successful court cases supports this view.

Q10 We are seriously concerned regarding data security. Your contract is with District Enforcement Ltd and, we assume, you have proper data sharing protocols in place with them. However, the registration system on the Where2Moor website is operated by a third party - Goanpr Ltd - which is linked to Solutionlabs (Holdings) Ltd and both companies have the same two directors. It is these companies collecting the boaters data. Have you ensured the safety of our members data ? Please confirm that this payment platform is regulated by the FCA

In summary – while you have attempted to assuage our concerns – there appear to be a huge number of legal challenges and outstanding protocol issues that need to be properly addressed before DE is allowed free rein with its doubtfully legal MCNs. Sadly, if you continue to refuse to engage with us as representatives of the users we will be left with no alternative other than to make our views an official complaint and request a proper review of the actions the Agency is taking in excess of its legal powers.

Yours sincerely

Charles Foster Chair – Residential Boat Owners

Mike Rodd Chair – National Association of Boat Owners

Andy Soper Vice-Chair DBA – The Barge Association"
 

djmercer

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After yet more prevarication on my FoI request, the EA has now sent me further information on the Contract between them and District Enforcement Ltd to manage Thames visitor moorings. It is still heavily redacted with almost all the financial details blacked out. Never the less, and while the 20-page document requires careful scrutiny there are some rather 'interesting' claims already apparent:
According to DE there is now a legal requirement to "continually cruise" (C&RT style) EA Thames waters and apparently DE has been managing 100 mooring sites for the last 6-years.
Just how gullible are the EA Thames managers?
The latest FoI response is here: https://ea.sharefile.com/.../s0be4a0d76cd84ecca9fd8f417c1... and the 20-page document with most Contract details is the one entitled "OFFICIAL-SENSITIVE-DE-redacted.pdf". I strongly advise against printing it - too many completely BLACK pages. This won't be the end of the matter!
Meanwhile, in separate correspondence with Maria Herlihy in which I asked how their claim on their MOORINGS page that "You may have to pay a fee at some sites at ANY time" could be justified in view of the TC Act Section 136 stipulation that NO CHARGE shall be made at any time for vessels moored at night or for a reasonable period", Maria has responded (almost unbelievably) that the MOORING charges referred to are not for mooring but for the 'enhancements' each site benefits from - such as fresh water, toilet disposal and toilets, showers and refuse disposal.
I also asked her to define the precise legislation which allows the EA to impose (or authorise others to impose) penalty charges at moorings, given the Statutory provisions of the TC Act Section 136. Her reply was that notwithstanding the express statutory provision within the TC Act, the EA could in effect do whatever it liked by virtue of Section 37(1)(a) of the Environment Act 1995. Do I now detect an air of desperation at the EA in attempting to justify this ill-conceived and unlawful scheme?
 
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