Boaters can use household recycling centres after complaint to Council

Itinerant boat dwellers have been turned away from local authority household recycling centres due to not being able to produce evidence of local residency such as a Council Tax bill. A liveaboard boater family travelling around Hertfordshire and Essex challenged this exclusion recently on the basis that it amounted to discrimination. They complained to both local authorities following advice to do so from the NBTA. Both Hertfordshire and Essex County Councils responded positively, and in record time. Boaters can now use these councils’ household recycling sites provided that, if requested, they show their Boat Licence disk and provide a nearby postcode, such as a local Post Office, boatyard or pub. Both councils were also happy to inform their staff straight away.

Boaters in Hertfordshire and Essex can now dispose of bulky rubbish in the recycling centres that are accessible to all other residents. We can dispose of or recycle items like waste oil or material from boat fit-outs, which the CRT rubbish bins do not take. It is clearly in the local authorities’ interests to provide access to boat dwellers, who may otherwise believe they have no option but to fly-tip. The boater family complained to both Essex and Hertfordshire councils by using the complaints contact form on the councils’ web site. This was not straightforward, because the complaints form required an address and postcode within the county in order to submit it. NBTA recommends using the following address format and giving the postcode of a nearby Post Office, boatyard or pub:
Narrowboat Pegasus, Grand Union Canal, Watford, Hertfordshire, WD18 8SN.

Here is a template complaint which you can also download here Template complaint – access to Household Recycling Centres

Dear Sir or Madam,

Exclusion of Itinerant Boat Dwellers from Household Recyling Centres

This is a formal complaint in line with your complaints procedure. We are itinerant boat dwellers who move around within your local authority area but we have been excluded from using your Household Recycling Centres. This is due to the requirement to prove that we are resident within this local authority area. This is discrimination, and it affects all itinerant boat dwellers who travel and moor within this local authority area, of which there are a significant number. Indeed your policy disadvantages all Travelling communities because it sets requirements we cannot meet.

We cannot provide proof of residence even though we ‘reside’ here, as we do not have a residential address or postcode and we are required to move around by Canal & River Trust (CRT). We need to be able to access Household Recycling Centres as the rubbish disposal facilities provided by CRT only accept normal household rubbish. If we were not able to access these council facilities many boaters may believe they have no option but to fly-tip, something that none of us would want to do.

To remedy our complaint please put a system in place to allow itinerant boat dwellers to access your Household Recycling Centres in line with land dwelling residents.

Itinerant boat dwellers can provide proof of their status by showing their Boat Licence disk, and their presence at a local centre would indicate that they are moored nearby and within the local authority area.

If implementation will take any more that a few weeks please provide an interim arrangement for itinerant boat dwellers as many of us have items, such as used engine oil, that needs to be recycled as soon as possible.

I look forward to your reply within the published timescales of your complaints procedure.

Yours faithfully,

A. Boater

The boater family also contacted CRT to request that it liaises with all local authorities to ensure that they all adopt the policy that Hertfordshire and Essex County Councils have taken the lead with. This is the response from CRT:

“Thank you very much for your email and it is excellent to hear that you have made progress with Herts County Council. We completely agree that it would be very beneficial for the Canal & River Trust to look to improve this issue.

Significant changes are on the horizon in relation to recycling. DEFRA have recently announced Simpler Recycling reforms, which will result in changes to our customer waste facilities in terms of what bins are available and how we communicate with customers to encourage greater recycling.

We are currently undergoing a full review of our customer waste facilities to establish what changes we need. The issue of the more difficult wastes, such as waste oils, has already been raised. The changes will trigger a review of signage at our bin facilities. Your comments about including detail on the use of LA sites for the waste oils etc are very useful and I will feed these into our review. Thank you again for taking the time to raise the concerns and inform us of the arrangements you have agreed with the council, it really is very useful information.”