When Canal & River Trust (CRT) come up with a new policy or strategy, they have a favourite word to cover up the subtext: fairness.
Safety Zones – fairness; extortionate pre-bookable moorings – fairness; converting casual moorings into restricted time visitor moorings – fairness; the licence surcharge for itinerant boaters – fairness. But who loses out each time? Who is targeted? Which part of the boating community is further marginalised whenever CRT talks about fairness? It is, of course, boaters without a home mooring.
But the subtext doesn’t stop with CRT. NBTA members and volunteers speak to a lot of people; members of other boating organisations, boaters and the public on the towpath when we are leafleting and delivering newsletters, people at our public events and of course at events like Cavalcade where we engage with the public and aim to undermine CRT’s spin that they are some kind of beneficent society. And sometimes we are asked “what is your solution?”
What are we supposed to do to come up with this “solution”? Stop campaigning against the so-called “Safety” Zones? Stop campaigning against the removal and monetisation of casual moorings? Stop campaigning against the licence surcharge? Stop campaigning for the interests of parents who need to send their children to school, or people with physical and mental health issues who need ‘reasonable adjustments’ to their expected cruising plans?
The fact is that these “what is your solution” questions are very rarely made in good faith. They are an attempt to deflect away from CRT’s attacks on our community and down a cul-de-sac where they can blame us for not coming up with the answers, framed within an acceptance of CRT’s claims that we are the problem. For these people, when they talk about a solution, they mean a solution to us, itinerant boaters.
So what should our reply be when we are asked about solutions? CRT need to stop blaming us; to stop marginalising us; to stop discriminating against us, and then, and only then, can we talk about the bigger picture.
Perceived versus actual unfairness
It is very important in the development of any policy that a clear distinction is made between perceived unfairness and actual unfairness. CRT uses the concept of fairness in a way that creates unfairness towards Bargee Travellers, in the interests of giving greater access to the waterways to other users. It must be noted that CRT’s most recent boat owners survey extrapolates that 35% of boat owners use their boat as their home. In addition, some 86% of boats have a mooring and only about 14% are licensed without a home mooring. Therefore CRT is restricting and persecuting a minority of boat owners in the interests of the majority. This is definitely not the way to increase fairness in access to the waterways. To take action to address a perception of unfairness is wasteful of resources, discriminatory, irrational and unjust. Bargee Travellers are just as entitled to moor on the towpath as the majority of boaters.
Article 8 ECHR
CRT speaks about fairness in the use of mooring space on its waterways. However, everyone who holds a boat licence has an equal right to use the waterway and its mooring space as much or as little as they choose, without restrictions on their reasons for doing so.
CRT accuses Bargee Travellers of using waterway space in a way that is unfair to other waterway users. CRT does this without consideration of the use the waterway and mooring space is put to. Use of a boat as your home carries protection under Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights: the right to respect for your home. Use of waterway space for other purposes does not carry the same protection.