Liveaboards being evicted in UK

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Thank you for bringing this to our attention old bilbo

QUOTE=oldbilbo;4548522]This is clearly not 'your average liveaboard' problem. People like these have been living on UK canals since we've had canals. Those living near me outside Bath, British citizens all, hold down jobs as nurses, creative steelsmiths, teachers, teaching assistants, roofers, diesel engineers ...and the local police inspector is on record as stating that 'the local boating community gives us no problems whatsoever'.

Nevertheless, they are being harassed by a quango that is answerable to no-one in the community and is hell-bent on promoting the interests of a growing band of commercial operators. Rampant injustice like this should be challenged. Opposed....

Do watch a little of this video. They're my neighbours and they are gentle, helpful people....




Read more here, then, if you feel some sympathy for the particularly-vulnerable souls being bullied and evicted from what little they have, sign the petition and pass it on, please.

https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/stop-evicting-disabled-elderly-and-vulnerable-boat-dwellers[/QUOTE]
 
Topcat47 said:
This reflects poorly on ALL the agencies involved and does not in any way absolve he trust of an appalling inhumane act in treating this vulnerable woman in such shabby fashion. Had they operated “with humanity” (their words not mine) they would not have towed her boat away leaving her alone on the towpath.

I am horrified at the power vested in this unrepresentative and unaccountable organisation, not to mention the other agencies who abetted the action while doing nothing to help the poor woman concerned. Care in the community? I don't think so.
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The CRT is doing what British Waterways should have done and are enforceing rules that have been there for years but never enforced.

One of the problems is/was that boaters who have kept the rules, paid their fees and act properly come to certain areas where 14 day or 48 hour mooring is permited only to find permanant livaboards who have obviously been there for months-if not years.

The CRT will need to keep a close eye on their finances and keeping licence holders happy will be in their minds long term.

When you read what you attatched to your post carefully the CRT did not just turn up mob handed and tow her boat away-they spent 15 months trying to resolve the issue and involved other relevant agencies.

I expect she still has her boat and is not therefore homeless, but will have to find another place to keep her home within the rules. This will probably involve costs as she has got away with a free mooring for years.

But at the expense of others.

I think the CRT-who are not a Quango, but a Trust, are between a rock and a hard place.

Dammed if they do, dammed if they dont. Their spokeswoman said they contacted almost 250 liveaboards and resolved all but 6 issues.

Not a bad record if you think about it, is it.
 
This highlights the judiciary which supports corporations and not the people.
I hope these pitiful excuse for humans (judiciary/bailiffs/police) are very proud of themselves.
God knows how they can justify their actions other than to support the corporations.
 
I trust that those who have signed the "petition" or suggested that CRT have acted incorrectly have read all the material related to the case - and not just taken the flawed petition as the only source.

The CRT is NOT a charity with a remit to provide housing for the homeless or disabled, nor to provide help for people who are unable to help themselves. They can only work within their own terms of reference. The decisions about evictions and how to help the persons involved is not made by them, but legitimately by the courts and the bodies, both statutory and voluntary, that do have that remit.
 
The rules under which you are allowed to keep a boat on the CRT operated waterways are crystal clear. If you do not have a permanent mooring, which you will have to pay for, you designate yourself as a continuous cruiser. This means that you may stay for a maximum of fourteen days in any one place before you must move on to another location. There are exemptions for short, specified over stays due to mechanical problems and ill health. What you can't do is simply to squat where you choose on the towpath.

For years the predecessor to CRT ignored the problem, which is what has led to case highlighted by the OP. The woman's case was heard by the court, where she had legal aid lawyers and lost her case. Since she chose not to comply with court order, it was necessary for CRT to use the powers available to anyone granted a court order to enforce it. It's a pity that she had to change her lifestyle but it was clearly in breach of the reasonable rules which go with the licence to use a boat on the waterways.
 
Seajet, I sympathise fully with your sentiments and feel great sympathy too for the true nomads who chose this lifestyle, indeed I admire them but there are such things as laws which we all have to abide by. We may not agree with them but they are binding nonetheless. I'd love to see some accommodation for the real ones but if that were made we'd only risk opening an official pathway to a sanctioned feral lifestyle. Is that what we really need?

Take a walk along the river in or near Oxford and look at the "dog-on-a-string-beggars" that infest the towpath for miles with their wrecks. 17%on benefeits? My arse! It's a zoo.

Not all of them for sure, but it's an all too easy escape for the scum, skyvers and shadowy who-knows-whos. You can hardly blame the authorities for looking askance at them.
 
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MASH & Tranona,

I know people who are well paid, hard working professionals; they have elected to live on canal boats, partly to have a different lifestyle, partly because even on good salaries houses in the South are out of reach for a single person !

Far from ' dog on a string scum ' these are hard working, skilled - dare I say it - middle class types.
 
You may recall the Shalom family and their fight with Crest

http://www.mvpicton.co.uk/

http://www.mvpicton.co.uk/latest_news.htm

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Dear Everyone,

Crest Nicholson and its leading employees were negligent to our Family of five young daughters.

Crest Nicholson and its leading employees were negligent to our dream home of 14 years.

Crest Nicholson and its leading employees were negligent to our dedicated and proven way of life.

Being solely responsible for causing a night time grounding accident to our houseboat home, (M V PICTON) whilst it was situated in Penarth Marina in Cardiff Bay (on April 2nd 2000) your company was negligent in providing its duty of care.

Essentially, your company forced the removal of some, but not all evidence. Please examine our records – yes we kept everything!

Our dream Home of 14 years, our way of life and our entire personal Family possessions were ‘disposed of’. Everything we owned, had worked so hard for, and to achieve, was removed from us. All of it was taken away or destroyed as a direct result of the heinous actions of your company. We now know how, that by intelligent lawful process, albeit it with wicked intent, Crest Nicholson got away with it!

The act of negligence that your company committed was the genesis for the whole legal process of full scale eviction. Crest Nicholson sought to mitigate the loss and effect of its own negligence. Some might say the company and its directors did well – as some legal process may have provided for them to be able to do certain things, which perhaps common law morality would have forbidden. We say the company and its directors acted inhumane, without heart or moral conscience. It did wrong. It is still wrong.

Some of your former employees have moved on. We cannot move on. Those events, the processes we have had to endure and in coming to terms, have been a living hell.

We know so far, that Crest Nicholson is not interested in truth or feelings. We know so far that Crest Nicholson is not interested in Social Justice or ‘Right’ from ‘Wrong’. We know from firsthand experience what Crest Nicholson does with the trust of a paying customer.

We trusted Crest Nicholson at Penarth Marina in Cardiff Bay to provide us, our children and our houseboat with a safe haven, friendly service and fine facilities. On April 2nd 2000 Crest Nicholson spectacularly failed us. Crest Nicholson is still failing us.

Negligence may indeed be a legalese term of reference that lawyers can palpitate endlessly about all day, but ultimately that is what Crest Nicholson means to us.

We wonder, how far does Crest Nicholson go towards such things as honorable conduct and doing the right thing, even when the law permits that it can legally do otherwise?

We thank you for your recent hand delivered invitation to attend an open weekend at Penarth Heights to see the launch of the Captain show home.

However, in view of the great injustice Crest Nicholson has suffered to our Family, Home and Way of Life, we kindly prefer on this occasion to invite you to reconsider compensating our Family for our total losses to date.

With kind regards,

Marie Louise and Vincent Shalom
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I went down the Grand Union last year. There were a significant number of boats tied up in the middle of long stretches of canal where the mooring ropes were crusted with mildew. They were also inhabited.

Are we to take it that people living on those boats never have a ****? Ot are they simply pumping **** into the water?

At the begining of the day, public health is important and people living on narrow boats have to have sanitation... That has to be paid for.
 
Tranona said:
I trust that those who have signed the "petition" or suggested that CRT have acted incorrectly have read all the material related to the case - and not just taken the flawed petition as the only source.
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For those who have signed without reading post #10, There are areas for free mooring in transit and there are permanent berths. The majority of people pay their rent and council tax on a permanent berth and can then use free moorings when they are cruising. A few pretend to be cruising but hog the transient berths long term and don't pay their dues. They are simply floating squatters. The campaign casts them in a romantic light as they live on cute boats and are old or unfit but if the situation was allowed to go unchecked the canals would become unusable.

As can be seen from the letter in post #10, most of the offenders are sorted out amicably and presumably persuaded to obey the rules or given a short-term waiver. Only a very few refuse to cooperate and are subject to enforcement. The image of brutal bailiffs turfing someone off their boat in the clothes they stand up in to sleep rough doesn't bear scrutiny.

You wouldn't get much sympathy on here if they were in a caravan in a lay-by, so why the difference?
 
As stated by a previous poster, the mooring situation is/was the problem.

The almost 250 boats actioned by the CRT were mostly in possession of annual licences for use on the waterways concerned.

What they were/are doing is mooring PERMANENTLY in short term spaces.

As we all know, living on a boat produces waste products-of various sorts, and requires fuel, food and water deliveries and toilet pump out disposal.

All these facilities are available on our waterways, provided by the CRT, previously BWB and private Marinas.

Over the years it has been easy, as the BWB took little action, to cheat. This cheating became a way of life, and a way of life on the cheap.

Seajet and OldBilbo- of course not all livaboards are wasters or cheats.

I suspect these are the ones who have had the hard word from the CRT regarding the permanent mooring situation and modified how they carry on their chosen lifestyle.

The 6 who have had enforcement action chose not to change-for whatever reason, including mental health issues, and have been involved with the process of law.

As I understand it this is a commitment the CRT made when it took over from the BWB. I believe several surveys showed that most waterways users were really pissed off with finding tempory mooring taken up by permanent livaboards when out cruising their boats.

As one would expect, the moorings usually used were not out of sight, 2 miles up the towpath, but in the prime spots adjacent to the towns facilites and amenities. Well you would, wouldnt you, if you could get away with it.

Well, quite rightly IMHO, you are less likely to get away with it now.

It is only the same as setting up as a permanent liveaboard at Hamble Town Quay.

I know for a fact you would not get away with it there.....................................
 
Seajet said:
MASH & Tranona,

I know people who are well paid, hard working professionals; they have elected to live on canal boats, partly to have a different lifestyle, partly because even on good salaries houses in the South are out of reach for a single person !

Far from ' dog on a string scum ' these are hard working, skilled - dare I say it - middle class types.
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I suggest you watch the video in the original post and also find out a bit more about the different ways of living aboard on a canal before you sound off in this way. There are indeed hundreds, if not thousands of people who live on boats on the canal system run by the CRT. They live within the rules, accept the constraints of their choice, participate in society and pay their way. Many more would like to do the same but there are constraints of capacity and the needs of other users of the canals to consider.

It is not those kind of people we are talking about here. The tiny number of people who are unwilling or unable to keep within the rules cannot expect the rules to be ignored just for them. The petition talks about equality. Where is the equality in not applying the rules to some people but expecting others to keep to them? The people involved in these unfortunate cases are not being discriminated against because of what they are, but get into this situation because of what they do (or don't do).

The CRT has no obligation to provide homes for people or deal with their medical or financial problems. This is the responsibility of others and it is incumbent on the CRT to work with other agencies (as they have done here) to help solve the specific problem. It is no different from the problems faced by other organisations dealing with people at the margins of our society and if you have worked in such an environment you will know that there is rarely a simple solution.

In my view the plight of people in difficult circumstances is not helped by shroud wavers such as the people behind this petition who distort the truth and exploit individuals who need help, often for political motives.
 
This was sent to me just now by a friend; they do not wish to be identified, but we're talking about a highly intelligent IT specialist here who happens to suffer from depression; also please note I have been a liveaboard myself, albeit on a sailing boat in a marina...

" I see this morning that the argument is still raging. I am making an assumption that the mental health charity involved in 'Maggie' s case is Mind. They are very good and helped me when I was facing repossession, however there is a big hole in what Mind AND councils can do in the face of being made homeless. The council cannot act to find you accommodation, until you are actually standing on the pavement with what possessions you are able to retrieve. And even then, what you are likely to get is a B&B in the short term, which is totally inappropriate for anyone with mental health problems. I know a B&B would have made me suicidal and Mind supported me in that. All that poor woman was given was a list of phone numbers, and she was, from what has been said, in a far worse state than I ever was, even at my lowest point. The other issue is this. Someone claimed, I believe incorrectly, that she would have had legal aid. As I know, and we have discussed before, there IS no legal aid available in civil cases, since April last year. I did have the support of a legal person from XXXX Council, but Mind did not attend court with me, and would not have been able to speak. The XXX legal rep had a letter from them and also from XXXX Adult Mental Health. CRT no doubt claimed in that case that any value in the boat or possessions would have been taken to mitigate their legal costs.

Mind have had their funding cut in many cases (they have to apply on a regional basis) which doesn't support Health Minister's assurances that there are no cuts in mental health support. The group I used to attend on XXXX was cut in September which is a loss to us as we don't have the immediate access to XXXX Adult Mental Health services as we did via the group. The people who ran the group knew us well enough that if they thought that our condition was getting worse, they would just call us in for a private chat, or we could ask for one and they could then take any steps needed to give us extra support. I fear that 'Maggie' may have been through similar circumstances.

I got the same response from CRT as someone posted in the forum, in reply to a Tweet - they sent me a link to their response. They want me to continue the argument out of the public eye which I will not do as it is not in the public interest nor in the interests of those being persecuted. I note that they only mention one specific case, and not the general argument that they are re-interpreting legislation to suit themselves and against the interests of the liveaboards.

CRT stated that they closed the canal bank to 'give Maggie privacy', My arse, they didn't want witnesses to what would have been a very distressing incident.

I don't want to stick my head up and say any of this in person on the YBW because any adverse comments from some of the bullies and Nazis over there would upset me too much. However, if you want to use any of this, you can do so. "
 
I read the threads on other fora about liveaboards on the K&A, about a year ago - I also signed the petition.

There are valid arguments on both sides but my feeling is that there are currently few or no options, other than pay marina fees or move on, for people who choose this way of life over a land based one.

If we, as a society make provision for people to live a land based but mobile lifestyle, and protect that choice with anti discrimination laws, then why are we not able to provide alternatives to the people who choose this lifestyle afloat for whatever reason?

Not everyone can afford to pay £3K (ish) for a canal marina berth, that's if they can find one where they wish or need to be, and not everyone can continuously cruise.
There should be some provision for people who own their own home, albeit a floating one, and just want to live a quiet life without the stresses of owning or renting a house.
The problem is not just that transient moorings are denied to genuine cruisers, but that people who wish to live a slightly alternative, eccentric, lifestyle are denied the facilities to do so.

I can't see why publicly/council owned moorings can't be provided for those who fall outside of the marina/CC groups.

I don't think that the law is in the wrong here, just that it hasn't been designed to take account of this alternative lifestyle.

If a petition draws this to wider attention and stimulates discussion about the limitations of the current rules, then that must be a good thing.

Nobody wants illegal liveaboards dumping their waste on the towpath and their sewage in our heritage waterways, so the answer is to provide facilities to reduce the problem.

Why should these waterways be the playground of the (relatively) wealthy and fit only?

On the other hand nobody wants the waterways to become polluted tips either, it's surely better to provide affordable facilities?
 
signed. There but for the grace of god etc.....whilst i don't fully support freeloaders,i would rather see them on their own boats than claiming vast amounts of housing benefits. I struggle to pay my rent every month and the temptation is move aboard gets stronger everyday...
 
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