EA Visiting Marinas
- Thread starter Chill
- Start date
watson1959
Well-Known Member
In practical terms how would the EA police such exemptions?
Do yOu have a vested interst? I ask only because since you registered as a user last tar this is the only subject which appears to have sparked your interest.
TT_WO
Well-Known Member
Do yOu have a vested interst? I ask only because since you registered as a user last tar this is the only subject which appears to have sparked your interest.[/QUOTE said:
Ramage
Well-Known Member
On the contrary, the forum is richer and more valuable to all if everybody makes a contribution.
Just like the river........
watson1959
Well-Known Member
It does not: however the norm In here is far more interactive and participatory. We are all free to voice our thoughts and opinions : yours are absolutely welcome...... So long as there is no hidden agenda : D
No Regrets
Well-Known Member
Looks like a slightly hidden agenda 
watson1959
Well-Known Member
watson1959
Well-Known Member
TT_WO
Well-Known Member
Ok, thanks for that.
As for a hidden agenda,I will try to explain further As someone who took part in the formal objection process of the Transport and works act, (one of only 8 individual objectors) this is a topic I feel able to comment on. Others may be interested and if so they can read the early threads on this forum where the legal issues were explored in some detail.
Here
And Here
I think it is an appropriate time to remind people that it is not as clear cut as the EA pretend especially as people will end up in court possibly on criminal charges as a result of EA enforcement officers entry into private adjacent waters marinas.
TT_WO
Well-Known Member
...... And fully licensed of course
Actually there is no such thing as a Thames licence as there is a legal right to use the Thames and therefore its use cannot be licenced by the EA, hence we register.
As I said I own a boat registered on the Thames.
thames cruiser
Well-Known Member
Outed! 
But nicely, I hope
But nicely, I hope
watson1959
Well-Known Member
Thanks for your honest reply: as a newbie to the river I find this very interesting and will take the time to read your links.
No Regrets
Well-Known Member
A refreshing piece of frank openness, Thank you.
Not quite what we enjoyed from other people with a hidden agenda earlier this year...
Come back any time
Not quite what we enjoyed from other people with a hidden agenda earlier this year...
Come back any time
thames cruiser
Well-Known Member
Here, here. And I will also now take the time to read the older posts
oldgit
Well-Known Member
We are obviously not all in this togther it would appear.
"I think it is an appropriate time to remind people that it is not as clear cut as the EA pretend especially as people will end up in court possibly on criminal charges as a result of EA enforcement officers entry into private adjacent waters marinas."
Clear cut or not you are on water that is sourced from the Thames,you are using a commodity the management of which is paid for by public funds form public taxation and with a very small contribution from river users.There is insufficant funding to pay for the river facilities at the moment and for every recalcitrant river user not prepared to pay their way because of legal ambiguity,someone else will be paying your share.
The river licence at the moment is nowhere near sufficent to fund the service you get at the present time and thats without people trying to avoid paying their fair share.
There are far to many river users and exploiters of the river not contributing..time to pay up gracefully perhaps ?
"I think it is an appropriate time to remind people that it is not as clear cut as the EA pretend especially as people will end up in court possibly on criminal charges as a result of EA enforcement officers entry into private adjacent waters marinas."
Clear cut or not you are on water that is sourced from the Thames,you are using a commodity the management of which is paid for by public funds form public taxation and with a very small contribution from river users.There is insufficant funding to pay for the river facilities at the moment and for every recalcitrant river user not prepared to pay their way because of legal ambiguity,someone else will be paying your share.
The river licence at the moment is nowhere near sufficent to fund the service you get at the present time and thats without people trying to avoid paying their fair share.
There are far to many river users and exploiters of the river not contributing..time to pay up gracefully perhaps ?
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mikemanor
Well-Known Member
I think this is not some legal ambiguity. There is an important issue that the EA is making up the law as they go along - and if they are allowed to get away with this, then anything could happen. I say this as someone who throughout the six years of staffing of the proposed order was a committee member and (for 3 years) vice-chairman of a boating organisation which objected to the order, and in that capacity attended the waterways minister's stakeholder forums.
In his decision letter, here,
http://archive.defra.gov.uk/rural/documents/countryside/waterways-twa-decision.pdf
authorising "The Environment Agency (Inland Waterways) Order 2010" the Secretary of State made it very clear that, "There was further concern that the law should not be changed to criminalise a boat owner who keeps a boat on a marina mooring, private mooring or private water body such as a pond or lake but chooses not to navigate the River Thames. The Secretary of State considered that it would be Ultra Vires Section 3 to apply registration and charging requirments to the adjacent waters and asked the EA to remove the relevant provisions."
The decision letter goes on to say:
Summary of Secretary of State's Decision
5. For the reasons given in this letter, the Secretary of State has decided that, subject to modification of the charging provisions and removal of provisions relating to adjacent waters and other minor modifications, the Order should be made in the form requested by the EA.
I think this is very clear. The Secretary of State very specifically did not authorise the EA to require registration or to charge boats in marinas, private moorings and private water bodies where they chose not to navigate on the River.
Exactly how and why are the EA attempting to do what the Secretary of State clearly stated they should not do?
We may, or may not, agree with what the Secretary of State decided - but that is not the issue here. The issue is that the EA should not be allowed to get away with it.
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TT_WO
Well-Known Member
Thanks for coming back, I was beginning to think I killed the conversation when I entered the room!
I would like to stick to the legal issues here but you seem to want to revisit the justifications as you see them, so I will try and answer your points in turn.
“Water sourced from Thames”
It is only Thames water when it is within the boundary of the Thames as defined by TC Act 1932 section 4. If this water finds its way onto private land by whatever means it does not change the status of that land from private to Thames, rather the status of the water changes from Thames water to private water. This has been the accepted interpretation for nearly 80 years by every Navigation Authority including the EA. To apply a registration charge to boats kept on private waters they needed a change in the law and asked in the original version of the Inland Waterways Order 2010 that they should be allowed to apply a registration charge to unused boats kept both on the Thames and on Adjacent waters. The first bit was finally granted but the adjacent waters legislation was denied, and just to remind you the EA described, for the purpose of the new legislation, an Adjacent Water as a marina amongst other things.
“you are using a commodity the management of which is paid for by public funds form public taxation”
Can I remind you that I am talking about people that keep unused boats in private, adjacent waters marinas, that use none of the facilities offered by the navigation, yes they enjoy water level regulation which as I understand it has always been funded by central Government taxation for flood control and not the navigation budget. In 2015 the responsibilities as well as the budgets will probably be managed by two different organisations, CART and EA (not to my mind a good idea but at least it will be clear what our navigation contribution pays for).
“and for every recalcitrant river user not prepared to pay their way because of legal ambiguity,someone else will be paying your share.”
See above response. As for ‘legal ambiguity’ I believe that it is the EA that are trying to exploit a legal ambiguity in the established wording of the TC Act.
Having failed to get adjacent water legislation passed, I believe that they set their legal team the task of finding something in the existing legislation (TC act 1932 section 4) that would enable them to apply a registration charge. They came up with the term ‘works’ and because there was no definition of the term works they state that it means adjacent water marinas. In my opinion this is an interpretation of the law designed to produce an outcome different from that envisaged when the law was enacted. I think it is unacceptable that a public funded body would resort to manipulate the established law in order to criminalize a boat owner who keeps a boat on a private adjacent waterway but chooses not to use it on the Thames. In 2007 when told by DEFRA that they would not be allowed to enforce registration on unused boats both on the Thames and Adjacent waters their legal team re-interpreted the phrase ‘boats used on the Thames must be registered’ I think we all know what this phrase was intended to mean in the legislation but the EA stated “having a cup of tea onboard meant that the boat was used on the Thames”, in my opinion another legal ambiguity that the EA set out to exploit.
In all fairness the EA must look again at their stand on this matter and accept that they do not have the power they claim over private adjacent waters including marinas in these private waters.
Wavey
Well-Known Member
Can I just check if that's the Thames Conservancy Act as I can't find the relevant bit in my copy.
TT_WO
Well-Known Member
http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukla/1932/37/pdfs/ukla_19320037_en.pdf
Hi thanks for looking page 4 section 4 (part 1) on the above link will get you to definition of the Thames.
TrueBlue
Well-Known Member
Perhaps it was the lack of strength of the "denial" of the SofS that gave some encouragement to proceed with their "fiendish plan". She could have insisted that the section was removed in the final Order, but she did not.
Also there were only some 19 objectors to the Order giving EA encouragement (?) that there would be no public outcry.
As there is a general Right of Navigation on the Thames, the only way to charge boaters (the TC used to charge a lock toll) is to levy a registration fee for having a vessel placed on their water.
That being so "not using the facilities" is irrelevant - it's on the water, you must pay
If the River is split in two (as it were) opens up a whole new can of worms and more expense; duplicate teams of people to manage the water flows and "we" may hope, operate the lock structures.
It may be that major legislation is required to alter the Right of Navigation so that a registration is replaced by a licence with a corresponding charge to taxation.
Dumping the canals onto CART was a relatively simple exercise as BW owned the track and structures. The Thames is different.
“and for every recalcitrant river user not prepared to pay their way because of legal ambiguity,someone else will be paying your share.”
I agree in general terms with your comments about the fudge in definition by EA, bur that's what legal teams are for. It's quite open for a boater / boaters to challenge the matter in Court.
However, it's expensive and as the Action is a prosecution, if you fail there's a criminal record to consider. Perhaps that's why nobody has taken up the cudgels.
I wonder why there's a fuss - if you leave your car untaxed on the road, you'll be prosecuted. Is that a difference from leaving your boat on Thames water?