Completely toothless interview. Nothing about any of this will impact liveaboard boaters. CRT only care about how the canals looks and people walking down beside them, if they could make us all disappear tomorrow they would.
this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Narrowboat and UK inland waterways ( canal and river )
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Completely toothless interview.
Considering, any interviewer has to get the interviewee to site and answer questions. I wonder how you feel interviewers are going to get people to volunteer if it is only ever negative for the interviewee.
But that is not really the point. This guy is just someone who runs a boating vlog. It seems, if you want answers about how it will impact a live aboard boater. It may be best to ask a live aboard boater to request an interview. I am not one. So while I can def see why they would be worried about the changes. It would be hard for me or any other non live aboard boater to express the exact differences. Between your life aboard and mine.
Currently, the main worry I hear is related to potential licence changes. Honestly, I do not think CRT knows exactly what they plan to do yet. But even if they do. I doubt any interviewer would get them to admit it. (lacking waterboarding like solutions).
Most of the other questions I think would relate to both live aboard and not. As home mooring, the most discussed deciding factor. This effects leisure boaters as well. As many use CC rules to keep the boats on the waterways. More so in the south, where moorings can be pricy and in short supply for leisure as well as residential. (yes, not as bad, but far from good).
Most other issues such as maintenance etc. It will affect anyone using the network.
As for other canal users. Well yes as the government funding represents approx 25% of the cost of maintaining the canals. (ATM). And that is what CRT are losing. It seems taxpayers are the people CRT would want to influence in current interviews. Boaters represent a relatively small % of taxpayers compared to walkers and other towpath users. if we want more money for the navigation side of canals. It is the walkers etc we need to convince that navigation is a key element of keeping them.
I will def agree CRT are doing little of that. They seem to fail to recognize how quickly canals turn into stagnant ditches without the movement of water they were designed for.
But we boaters would also be lost without the towpath maintenance mainly provided for walkers. This is in part why I push the inclusive idea within this community.
The canal system is funded by multiple sources. The big ones before this change.
50m DEFRA(tax payer)
48m boat licencing
50m capital investment profits.
the rest (50m) from other sources including. charity, businesses fees, fishing licences etc.
So it is definitely important to keep all of those folks on our side as boaters.