‘Continuous cruiser’ wins battle against canal eviction

Jeff Zedic at home on his boat.
Boat dweller Jeff Zedic has won his battle against the Canal and River Trust to keep his home on the water.
In September the 51 year-old teacher received an email from the Canal and River Trust (CRT), the organisation that regulates canal usage, saying he had broken the terms of his licence and had 28 days to leave the canal, or his boat would be destroyed.
Since May Zedic had been under a six-month restricted ‘continuous cruiser’ licence for boat dwellers who, according to the CRT, ‘don’t move far enough’ or ‘don’t have the right pattern of movement’.
Continuous cruisers must move their boat every 14 days and moor in different spots, rather than moving back and forth between the same places.
The CRT is supposed to send a mid-point reminder three months before the six-month licence expires, yet Zedic says he received his notice only six weeks before the end of his licence.
He was shocked to discover that the CRT was requiring him either to leave, or to purchase a residential mooring at a cost of £4,000 a year or more.
“I know I haven’t done anything wrong, but it’s still a very frightening situation. My boat is my home, they told me they were going to destroy it and that I couldn’t do anything about it.
“The only time I stayed more than 14 days in the same place was because my boat was damaged and I could not cruise. They also accused me of travelling back and forward on the canal but it was only to get some fuel. It’s ridiculous,’ said Zedic.
With help from a campaign launched by the National Bargee Travellers’ Association, Zedic finally got his licence back, but he had to go through a long and stressful process to do so. “I had to request the data recorded by British Waterways which shows precisely the movement of my boat to prove they were wrong.”
The CRT have again given Zedic a six-month restricted licence. Zedic has been living on the canal for seven years and he cannot understand why the Trust will not give him a full one-year licence.
Marcus Trower, deputy chair of the National Bargee Travellers’ Association, said Zedic’s story is not an exception: “We believe the CRT is trying to have dwellers pay for expensive home moorings, or simply to force them out.”
Trower accuses the Trust of focusing too much on financial profit. “They want the canal to be this idealistic place so they can sell tours to tourists, they tend to consider our community as slums.”
The Canal and River trust declined to comment on the case, but a spokesperson said: “While we can’t comment on individual cases, we will only restrict a licence if a boater has repeatedly broken the terms they signed up to.
“We always talk to boaters who look like they’re running into trouble and try to sort things out in a way that works for everybody involved.
“Refusing to renew a licence is the last thing we want to do: we’d prefer boaters to play by the rules and we will continue to monitor boaters to ensure fairness.”
When you buy a boat licence you agree to either have a home mooring where your boat can be kept or make a continuous journey. Just moving back and to in a small area because you want to stay close to work is not an option. Canal and River Trust own the waterway, so it is their right to define and impose rules to control boat use, just as any landowner does. These rules are defined, and if a boater does not follow them then they will take action against them. I pay for a mooring to stay legal.
Colin Edmondson. What utter rubbish thou doth spout. Canal and river trust do not “own the waterways”. Furthermore, Canal and river trust are supposed to follow the 1995 act which has clear legislation, yet canal and river trust choose often to abuse that which is laid down in law.
Please get the facts Colin.
Waterways Act 1995 section 17(3)(c)(ii)the applicant for the relevant consent satisfies the Board that the vessel to which the application relates will be used bona fide for navigation throughout the period for which the consent is valid without remaining continuously in any one place for more than 14 days or such longer period as is reasonable in the circumstances.
ANY ONE PLACE it says.
No minimum range.
No mention of “enough” or any other distances.
CART have gone mad.!!
I am also a live aboard boater and can confirm that sadly this is not an isolated incident. in my opinion the Canal and River Trust demonstrate a significant level of hostility towards the people who live on the Waterways they are charged with managing.
This boat continuously overstayed at Paddington basin and hardly moved.
Yet another case after this one seems to be about to start where C&RT are being unreasonable and unhelpful in their management of it again.
If he’s lived there for seven years why doesn’t he buy a residential mooring? If the boaters want to be treated as residents and have their homes respected then they have to act like it and stop abusing the continuous cruising rules. There’s a finite amount of space on the river banks, it does need to be properly managed.
I’m also a c cruiser – I’ve lived aboard for over 10 years and the reason I don’t have a residential mooring is because I enjoy moving. The only time it gets a bit rough is parts of Winter but even then the cost of a Winter mooring is exorbitant. I work part-time and have student fees to pay the rest of the time. Being resident on a boat is NOT dependent on having a mooring. As for being respected it’s a small minority who mess up the towpath – most boaters are great and our presence makes the towpath safer for joggers, walkers etc.
In November 2013 at Cheshire County Court, His Honour Judge Derek Halbert found that the bona fide navigation requirement of the 1995 Waterways Act was “temporal not geographical”. This means that continuous cruisers must not remain in one place continuously for more than fourteen days, but CaRT cannot enforce a movement of any particular distance and that it is a continuously cruising boater is not in breach of the licence terms and conditions if he/she shuffles his vessel between two different places. CaRT have been misinterpreted the law and so, itself, has been acting illegaly.