Mutton dressed up as lamb

Some of us vainly hoped that Sally Ash's departure might lead to CRT adopting some genuine blue skies thinking about their boating business.

One hope was that CRT might finally abandon the almost annual tinkering ritual when it comes to Boat Licence Terms and Conditions: but apparently not. This time it seems that they are not even bothering with the pretence of doing consultation but are just planning to impose the changes from April come what may (see NABO article, which also links on to a document from CRT on the changes). After due consideration, NABO have described the proposed changes as adopting "an unnecessarily aggressive tone".

Subsequently we also have an old favourite back in the fore with the latest CRT pronouncements on continuous cruising. The nub of this seems to be to formalise a policy of trying to force people to take long term moorings. I suppose at least they are now saying so openly!

The threat of removing/refusing to renew licences on seemingly opaque movement criteria which CRT will unilaterally apply to decide whether a given boat must find a long term mooring before re-licencing seems fraught with problems when one tries to work out how this will operate in practise. It will be doubly difficult when, as seen in the Mayers case, there are almost no suitable residential moorings available for many of those boats. One suspects this proposal is not likely to end well for anyone and will doubtless make for some interesting complaints and litigation at some point in the future!

More worryingly, it seems to me we are just getting old failed policies dressed up in new clothes! That of course was one of Sally's favourite tactics!