The NBTA met with CRT’s Legal Department and Head of Boating yesterday, 21st April 2016. Present from CRT were Jackie Lewis, Head of the Legal Department; Tom Deards of the Legal Team; Mike Grimes, Head of Boating and Matthew Symonds, Relationship, Policy and Strategy Manager.
CRT conceded very little. They are sticking to their interpretation of what is “bona fide navigation” and are not minded to compromise.
CRT confirmed:
– that boaters without home moorings are not required to engage in a progressive journey;
– that a travel range of 10 miles is not enough (following the case of British Waterways v Davies in 2011);
– that there is still no clarity on what distance is sufficient;
– CRT accepted that “locality” and “area” or “general area” are not used as terms and only “place” is valid;
– that they are not prepared to give any leeway to boat dwellers with children in school;
– they will only be issuing 6-month restricted licences in exceptional circumstances, from 1st May 2016;
– that the consequence is that they will be issuing many Section 8 notices thereafter;
– that these Section 8 notices will not be issued at the same time and this appears to be a deliberate plan to prevent a “class action”;
– that it is accepted that NBTA will be supporting the Section 8 defendants;
– that CRT do not have an Equality Officer;
– that CRT do not have an equality policy and they see no need for one;
– that CRT will only agree“reasonable adjustments” to boaters with disabilities for finite periods of time.
– that CRT do not accept that they have to honour requisitions from people with disabilities for reasonable adjustments if they don’t consider the adjustments to be reasonable.