Ben - 9's Waterways

Monday 1 February 2010

No Point In Asking Us!

Those of you with nothing better to do with your time than listen to the radio might have heard an item on today's You and Yours programme about boat moorings.

The report says that BW has put up prices because of the shortage of residential moorings with planning permission. BW says that the number of people living on boats has doubled in the last five years. Some "houseboaters" claim, unsurprisingly, that BW is exploiting the situation.

The lovely Sally Ash from BW told the programme that there are very few residential moorings with local authority planning consent and that the demand is hugely outstripping supply.

The chairman of the Residential Boat Owners Association, Rex Walden, pointed out that planning permission is needed for someone to live aboard a boat on a permanent mooring and reckons that 90% of people living on such a mooring are doing so illegally. He said that councils won't give permission for residential moorings, as they see them in the same way as "bricks and mortar".

When the reporter, Sarah Swaddling, approached the Local Government Association, which represents councils, for an interview, they said they "didn't have the expertise to be able to comment".

The Department for Communities and Local Government, asked about the lack of national planning guidance for moorings, said "We do not consider it appropriate for Government to issue guidance on dealing with applications for residential mooring development, as the decision is best taken locally after careful consideration of the impact on the local area."

So the Government says that it's up to local councils and local councils say they don't have the expertise! Don't ask us, 'cos we don't know!

Meanwhile, are something like 90% of residential boaters really living on unofficial moorings? If they are then it seems pretty likely that they are not paying Council Tax. The local councils, by ignoring the need for residential moorings, are losing out on the potential revenue, while the boaters live with the constant worry that some official might come along and evict them from the mooring.

You can listen to the item for the next week on the BBC website. Fast forward to 12 minutes into the programme.

Oh, and can someone please tell the BBC that those floaty things that were being talked about are not called "houseboats"?

ben-9

1 comment:

  1. Baz (sometime local authority planner)14 March 2010 at 22:47

    Nice posting. Although I have no basis for disputing the figure of 90% of residential boaters being on unofficial moorings but I expect there are quite a lot. According to April's WW there are 200 on the western end of the K&A alone. But potential income from council tax is no incentive for a local authority to do something about it. If unauthorised moorers were evicted they would be likely to declare themselves homeless, incurring a much greater charge on the Council than would ever be recouped from local taxation. Taking action under the Planning Acts would be fraught with difficulty. Since informal moorers don't really impinge on the voters - the odd towpath junkheap and generator excepted - the media would be likely to portray any attempt by a Council to deal with the problem as a heavy-handed bit of bureaucracy. So there's no votes in it. Which is why poor old BW ends up carrying the can, with a similar risk of bad publicity at a time when it can't afford to upset politicians.

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