Book Barge row - missing the point?

It's interesting how the media furore around the 'book barge', Word on the Water, has developed. On social media and elsewhere there is much about the 'unfairness' of a higher bidder getting the long term mooring in Paddington. Make of that what you will but given the background to my recent petition to CRT, and the way the allocation of CRT moorings is decided generally, the outcome in this case should come as no big surprise.

Narrowboatworld, never a gentle critic of CRT, acknowledges in its article that the boat has a roving trading permit (clue in the name) and that the current occupation of a berth in Paddington was a temporary arrangement. So it seems inevitable to me that CRT would ask Word on the Water to move on if they didn't make the highest bid.

However more worryingly many of those complaining seem to me to have missed the bigger point. The idea of having a commercial mooring or two in the Paddington area was consulted on with local canal users through the Better Relationships Group (BRG) and CRT have as usual ignored what was said in the consultation process and gone another way.

Petition sent to Canal and River Trust trustees

Just to say thanks to those who have signed the petition so far; As I said to supporters through 38 degrees,  

I am planning to leave the petition open at least until CRT issues its response, so if you have friends or contacts who you think have not signed yet and who would still offer their support please encourage them to do so even though the formal consultation period is over. Any additional pressure we can keep on them to think again in advance of them deciding what to do next must be a good thing.

I have just sent the petition with 442 signatures to CRT with the covering letter reproduced below.

Given what they have said so far and given their general track record when it comes to acting on what boating customers say, I will not hold my breathe about them changing their minds. CRT knows best children.

PS. Spell check just offered the following option for the first time: Cabal and River Trust. I know Google is quite smart at discrening user preferences and learning stuff about you but....!

CRT knows best!

As I have just said on Facebook; I'm smiling wryly at Alan's latest article on NBW;
http://narrowboatworld.com/…/ne…/7431-cart-ignoring-petition

...and of course please sign the petition if you haven't already and think that the option of scrapping the policy of selling public assets to the higest bidder should be on the table.

Don't forget that the consultation ends this weekend. Please also send your thoughts direct to CRT; 'all comments and views to mooring.updates@canalrivertrust.org.uk'.

Sorry to go on, but further proof if needed that CRT Trustees don't really care what boaters think. Same old 'we know best attitude' we experienced with BW. Plus ca change...

The same seems to be happening with the so called London Better Relationships Group. Lots of stuff flying around about having an agenda but a seemingly steadfast refusals, (it has to be said not just from CRT but from other members of the group), to go back to the consultation responses that started all that:

My missive to the BRG earlier this week, by way of illustration. Are you sitting comfortably?

CRT blatantly refuses to reconsider the 'merits' of selling moorings to the highest bidder

As I said to some friends when I saw this, in the words of Brick Top, 'Are you taking the piss?'.

The latest consultation from CRT will let you discuss just about anything you want about their much hated moorings auctions process except whether it should exist at all.

Narrowboatworld has already reported this and columnist Allan Richards has had a go and I have decided to join in with something I rarely do, starting a petition. https://you.38degrees.org.uk/petitions/that-the-trustees-of-the-canal-and-rrver-trust-withdraw-the-current-consultation-on-moorings-sales.

... but which way will the wind blow?

I think we are at a critical time for the future of boating on CRT canals and rivers. I said before that I hope that the recent departure of the much reviled Sally Ash and the other changes in the boating management team represents an opportunity for the winds of change to blow. But of course as ever there is no consensus about what form or direction any change should take.

CRT still price fixing moorings

Two vacancies advertised at Engineers Wharf again at the moment. Have CRT reduced the reserve price to try to get them let after all these years vacant ? Of course not!

Can't Really Trust'em!

Mooring customers still being screwed by Canal and River Trust

I've been tracking the state of play with vacancies at Engineer's Wharf for several years now and latest observations from the CRT moorings Auctions site re-confirm that CRT are simply lying to us when they claim that prices of directly managed moorings are market led.

As of today there are yet again two vacancies advertised, but the reserve prices have been increased since I last reported vacancies in Winter 2013. The current vacancies have reserve prices of £5292 pa. Agreed this is a modest increase of just over 1% compared to the reserve prices I reported in Sept 2012 but the facts are the same: The berths are it seems unpopular and/or have high turnover, but instead of lowering prices and getting them in use, the price goes up. 

Canal and River Trust still manipulating mooring prices

Last year I cited the example of Engineer's Wharf in London as a prime example of BW and now CRT failing to offer true market prices. Well a year later it's still going on.

Today there were still two vacant berths advertised at Engineers Wharf on the CRT Moorings Auction site. Clearly CRT are no different from BW in this respect; they would rather have empty berths in a region where there is supposed to be a moorings crisis going on than lose face by reducing prices?

Flogging a dead mooring (Not!)

Well I never. Just searched Moorings Vacancies again and now all five vacancies which I pointed out back in September are showing as still vacant, at Engineer's Wharf. How long does this farce have to continue?

Canal and River Trust still manipulating Mooring Prices

They are still at it. Went and searched advertised residential moorings vacancies earlier and at Engineers Wharf there are four berths showing vacant today.

Clearly the suggestion that CRT set a market rate for directly managed moorings is a lie as the reserve prices have not been reduced despite the apparently ongoing vacancies. It seems they will set a market rate if the price goes up but apparently not when it should go down?

The real scandal is of course that we are all being asked to contribute and fundraise for CRT but they are simultaneously prepared to forego in excess of £20 000 per annum in rental income (just in this example) in order to artificially inflate the price of London Moorings?

Manipulating Moorings Prices?

I've long held that British Waterways manipulated the moorings auctions process in order to push mooring prices up artificially. I've long held that they have almost never reduced reserve prices for moorings that are 'hard to let'.  It seems CRT are going to continue in the same vein. I wrote last year about Engineers Wharf in West London, how the moorings were blatantly over-priced and no-one took them. I wrote about the number of vacancies that persist there and about the then BW's steadfast refusal to reduce the price, apparently prepared to lose income rather than lose face.

Well guess what? I looked that moorings auctions website a few minutes ago and there are presently no less than 5 vacancies advertised at reserve prices of £5189 per annum, nearly £700 more than a year ago. (Do a search for residential vacancies before next Thursday and all 5 should still be there.)

What more proof do we need that the claim that where there is lack of demand BW/CRT will reduce the mooring price is too often a lie? This case seems to to prove beyond doubt that the reserve price system is being blatantly abused. It also confirms the view that  BW/CRT will forego income (in this case perhaps something in the order of £20 000) in order to artificially hold up prices.

British Waterways prefer to forego income rather than lose face?

Another boater and I were laughing about this earlier this week and a good joke is always worth sharing: BW's residential moorings at Engineer's Wharf.

Anyone who knows London Canals will know that the moorings in question are sited near Yeading on the Paddington Arm of the Grand Union Canal. Like many good jokes however the underlying truth is less comfortable and again goes to question the honesty or lack thereof with which the BW system of Moorings auctions is implemented.

The truth about Moorings Tenders?

Senior British Waterways officers have apparently come to the view that they do not like mooring tenders as much as they used to.

• Is it because there has suddenly been an outbreak of reasonableness in their bit of Watford? 
• Or have they finally had a change of heart and accepted that selling chargeable services to the highest bidder might not be an appropriate way for a a public body to conduct itself?

No.  In the current climate it seems that the moorings tenders process is suggesting that they should reducing moorings fees.

Of course, they don't want to admit that to the rest of us!

Info on BW 2010 Mooring Fee Increases and price setting

I reported yesterday that the relevant info appeared to have been moved. I was wrong - it's one of BW's directions to that info that seems to be wrong!

Mockery of Moorings Tenders process

I've mentioned before BW's policy of only offering mooring vacancies to the highest bidder.

This is what presently constitutes British Waterways' process for allocating vacant moorings on its waterways. Their justifications for this (and the almost universal opposition from the main boating user groups) can be seen in full detail here.

20/20 - Visions or Illusions?

The winds of change may finally be breaking through in Watford. British Waterways recently launched “2020 – A vision for the future of our canals and rivers”.

That British Waterways needs to change and modernise is self evident. A £30M deficit, no prospect of Government bail-out, plus the emperor’s new clothes having fallen off BW’s planned reliance on the property market, all focus the mind, even in BW!

The immediate consequences for those most intimately connected to the waterways however are that we are paying the price.

• Boaters, the largest and most valuable group of individual fee paying customers, are seeing licence and mooring fee increases at the hand of BW of typically 7-10% per annum.

• Mooring vacancies are now only offered to the highest bidder.

• A thousand BW staff including their frontline patrol teams (but not the board and directors who led them into this mess!) is having to re-apply for nine hundred vacancies (i.e. rather than upset a hundred members of staff with redundancy notices, let’s upset a thousand!).