Registration evasion

[Cashbuyer]

It's now 2018 and I still can't pay my licence online.

It's a wonder that anybody has the time to make a phone call or post a cheque to pay the fee.

It's a wonder not more people avoid paying purely based on the fact that's it a pain in the proverbial.

And probably why a high percentage of owners of more luxury craft don't have the time to faff around and make a payment via telephone when they have better things to do like running a company and keeping people employed...

And why should marina staff have to do the job of the Environment Agency? Marinas are a business and need to attract customers and investment. Why would they alienate their customer base by becoming licence police?

 

[Old Crusty]

I pay my road tax online and it takes as long to complete the DVLA's online application as it does to phone the boat reg team in Rotherham and pay by card. I guess the wealthy will have someone to do their boat admin as they do their car admin.

MDL Marinas state in their berth holder agreement that the boat owner must have insurance and comply with EA regulations including registration. MDL also state that it accepts no obligation to any owner to enforce any provision of its own regulations against any other person. The proverbial 'get out clause' some might say but it's just not their job to enforce registration, that is the role of the navigation authority so its recent complaint about marinas is just smoke on the water.

There are enough waterways staff to regulate the river but they do need to spend the time afloat doing the job. Currently, that is not the case and most of them other than lock keepers spend most of their working day in an office sitting in pointless meetings or driving a laptop, chasing health & safety forms, ticking boxes, answering boaters complaints and avoiding responsibility. It's not their fault, they simply do not have the clear direction they need from their nearly invisible senior managers. The EA is constipated by its own bureaucratic process and not remotely geared to achieving positive outcomes and especially with regard to the Thames. The answer is to lobby the CEO and chair and employ the tactic of nuisance, something one of the TNUF reps is pursuing.

If anyone reading these registration related posts is as keen as I am to ensure the EA regulates the river and gets in every penny it is due then please do attend the RUG meetings and tell your river reps what is important (registration enforcement, dredging, overhanging trees, speeding), complete the EA's consultation document mentioned further down the list of threads and write/email/tweet to Emma Howard Boyd, chair of the EA or James Bevan, CEO.

If all 12,000 of us who pay registration fees make our voices heard we might shake the EA out its stasis and current excuse to sit on its hands caused by the indecision over the CRT matter.

Can we, as a body of licence payers, do that?

 

[Big John]

I pay my road tax online and it takes as long to complete the DVLA's online application as it does to phone the boat reg team in Rotherham and pay by card. I guess the wealthy will have someone to do their boat admin as they do their car admin.

MDL Marinas state in their berth holder agreement that the boat owner must have insurance and comply with EA regulations including registration. MDL also state that it accepts no obligation to a<script id="gpt-impl-0.08626435414671096" src="https://securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/gpt/pubads_impl_170.js"></script>ny owner to enforce any provision of its own regulations against any other person. The proverbial 'get out clause' some might say but it's just not their job to enforce registration, that is the role of the navigation authority so its recent complaint about marinas is just smoke on the water.

There are enough waterways staff to regulate the river but they do need to spend the time afloat doing the job. Currently, that is not the case and most of them other than lock keepers spend most of their working day in an office sitting in pointless meetings or driving a laptop, chasing health & safety forms, ticking boxes, answering boaters complaints and avoiding responsibility. It's not their fault, they simply do not have the clear direction they need from their nearly invisible senior managers. The EA is constipated by its own bureaucratic process and not remotely geared to achieving positive outcomes and especially with regard to the Thames. The answer is to lobby the CEO and chair and employ the tactic of nuisance, something one of the TNUF reps is pursuing.

If anyone reading these registration related posts is as keen as I am to ensure the EA regulates the river and gets in every penny it is due then please do attend the RUG meetings and tell your river reps what is important (registration enforcement, dredging, overhanging trees, speeding), complete the EA's consultation document mentioned further down the list of threads and write/email/tweet to Emma Howard Boyd, chair of the EA or James Bevan, CEO.

If all 12,000 of us who pay registration fees make our voices heard we might shake the EA out its stasis and current excuse to sit on its hands caused by the indecision over the CRT matter.

Can we, as a body of licence payers, do that?

You are asking a lot. In my experience boaters say a lot, moan a lot but cannot be bothered to make their views known to the EA Senior Management. Their departing words are usually "what is the point, nothing will get done."

 

[Old Crusty]

You are asking a lot. In my experience boaters say a lot, moan a lot but cannot be bothered to make their views known to the EA Senior Management. Their departing words are usually "what is the point, nothing will get done."

You and I both know that's what the EA is banking on so we shouldn't give up. Hope to see you at Boveney later in the year!

 

[Parabordi]

Excellent post

 

[boatone]

Excellent post

which one ?

 

[wrecktangle]

Not yours. Crusty's

Dont you use the threaded view?

 

[Parabordi]

 

[No Regrets]

It takes five minutes to phone the EA and renew.

In fairness a faultless and excellent service. Why would anybody want to complain about that!?

 

[Phill]

And probably why a high percentage of owners of more luxury craft don't have the time to faff around and make a payment via telephone when they have better things to do like running a company and keeping people employed...

Took me less than ten minutes to call, pay and get back to work. I was happy with that.

 

[Big John]

You and I both know that's what the EA is banking on so we shouldn't give up. Hope to see you at Boveney later in the year!

Look forward to it.

 

[Cashbuyer]

Took me less than ten minutes to call, pay and get back to work. I was happy with that.

That's great. But the fact that you cannot pay online proves the fact that the Agency is stuck in the past and run by dinosaurs

 

[No Regrets]

It might go to show they are keeping expenses down and using the perfectly good admin team to do the job, without all the aggro of running a operate payment system!?

The phone call really is quick and painless!! Fair play to them in this case...

 

[boatone]

It might go to show they are keeping expenses down and using the perfectly good admin team to do the job, without all the aggro of running a operate payment system!?
The phone call really is quick and painless!! Fair play to them in this case...

Delighted to both agree with you and confirm your suspicion of why they use this process. A significant percentage of EA revenue is sliced off for general EA overheads. EA Thames are making use of a central registration facility which does not cost any extra out of their coalface budget. As you say a painless and effective service - took me less than 10 minutes start to finish and a competent agent to boot - would that others I deal with could be as efficient.

 

[Chris_d]

Not sure about all this phoning business I just sign the form post it back, license arrives, direct debit rolls over.

 

[Parabordi]

Not sure about all this phoning business I just sign the form post it back, license arrives, direct debit rolls over.

Ditto, much easier

 

[rosssavage]

Me too. New BSS this year - I’d rather write the number down on paper than pass it verbally.

 

[Big John]

That's great. But the fact that you cannot pay online proves the fact that the Agency is stuck in the past and run by dinosaurs

There was an option to reply via e-mail to confirm your renewal. Took less than 50 seconds. Licence received 5 days later. Could not want a better service.

 

[Captain Coochie]

Mines been direct debit for years .

 

[boatone]

To return to the OT of evasion, one serious difficulty in assessing just how serious this is is that no one knows exactly how many boats there are actually on the waterway. The only reliable statistic is the number of craft that are actually registered. This is further exacerbated by the number of boats which have no visible name or other identifying mark making. It difficult to keep track of them and identify ownership.