Below is a DBA email. Please read and act on it. There is no good reason why wide beam craft should pay more.
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Ian Petchey has uploaded the BW consultation to our website at
http://www.barges.org/main.php?section=1635This is a very long document and contains a BWAdvisory Forum (BWAF) report commenting on various proposals to change some aspects of BW licensing. BWAF was not able to come to a consensus and BW have agreed to go to wider consultation before making any changes.
The main area of contention for DBA members is the suggestion that wide beam boats should pay more. There is also a proposal that continuous cruisers should pay more. In paragraphs 8.4d, 9.15f and 9.17e you will see that the DBA's opposition to these proposals has been recorded.
I will draft the DBA response to this consulation for board approval and copy it to this list. However I urge all members who are on BW water to read the whole of the document and make their own representation as although Simon Salem has suggested that views should be via organisations in these circumstances numbers count! It is likely that there are only 50 DBA members on BW water. The majority of the 5664 wide beam craft are river cruisers or wide beam 'narrowboats' not barges as we know them. We need your representation to make an impact.
You can see from the Table in para 4 of Simon Salem's covering note that for 19,910 narrow boat owners the BW proposals are very attractive reducing their license fee increase from 11.2% to 6.6%. You will have noted that the trade have also been protected with a promise of no more than a 7.5% increase.
A few thoughts to set you off:
BW have not yet made a convincing case for increasing private boat licences by nearly 12%.
The proposal to change from 'length only' was predicated on the basis that the current length only scheme was 'not fit for purpose'.
Much of the pressure for wide beam charging came from the trade who only have narrowboats and have a vested interest in keeping the headline increase as low as possible although that now recedes with the promise of a cap of 7.5% and a new operators license scheme in years which will replace the current 2.35 X basic license fee calculation.
I have continued to point out that change should only occur if there is a better solution. The continued disagreement in BWAF and lack of good proposals from BW suggests that no change should be the recommendation until there is a clear consensus on a better way forward.
There is no justification for a higher licence fee for a wider boat except that the wider boat will be more valuable than the equivalent thin boat and thus length and beam contribute to value - but not of course to ability to pay.
Ability to pay is an important factor but not BW's problem. There is acceptance that significant changes to license charges arrangements after you have chosen your type and size of boat is unfair.
Wide beam boats already make an extra contribution to BW as their marina mooring fee is usually higher and thus the 9% of fees that marina owners pay to BW is higher.
The principal that wide beam should pay less because their use of the system is limited by gauge is flawed as boats longer than 55ft are limited by lock gauge and cannot use all of the narrow gauge network.
We have until 7 November to send responses to
www.barges.org
