Activist or troublemaker? That is the question

NABO council member and West Midlands representative Peter Braybrook comments on some more topical issues.

IT IS summer, and balmy days bring an opportunity to rest for a while and idle hours away on some of our favourite moorings.

We can stop and stare at the slow descent of the blood red sun onto the horizon of freshly mown hayfields and sip a smooth evening drink in the warm glow of the evening sky. How fortunate we are to be able to enjoy sunsets and dawns, in such calm and beautiful surroundings, enveloped by the mists and liquid lustre of the canal on which we float. However restful it is we are not inactive.

“I don't know whether you are an activist or a troublemaker!” I was chatting to a boating friend recently as one does and the topic of Terms and Conditions for boat licences came up, as it does. I must admit this is a hobby horse of mine. (I am sorry to repeat some things I wrote in March.) “T & Cs are a fact of life,” my friend stated “They are everywhere, we agree them every day.”

That does not mean that I like having to tick the boxes that I have read and understood the very small print on every purchase or booking I make. We only have 24 hours each day and the internet is supposed to speed up the processes isn’t it? There is usually no way through the booking process without this agreement and many of the T & Cs end with a clause to the effect that these conditions do not affect our statutory rights.

M&S is regulated by the Consumer Rights Act 2015: Canal & River Trust by the British Waterways Acts 1963 to 1995. The trust's Terms and Conditions for Boat Licences purport to be made under the Transport Act 1962 and do not have such a clause. You still cannot get through the internet licensing system without agreeing them. But they do contain at least one clause that, in my opinion, runs counter to s17 of the 1995 BW Act – Conditions as to Licences and Certificates.

What became evident in the conversation was that my friend did not know what the T & Cs actually said! Of course, most of the time things go through okay and the purchase is made or the tickets are booked and the licence is issued so we never need to look at the T & Cs again. So do they really matter; are they worth getting upset about? Our conversation ended with that comment.

Which one do I want to be described as? Activist or troublemaker? I like to think that I am an activist. There is something positive in that. I do not want to let things go. Being an activist is time consuming and takes effort. Being active takes energy and it is far easier to be passive and let the world pass one by. I don't believe that we should be passive about those things that affect us deeply.

A better place

As I get older I think more of the world that we are leaving to our children and grandchildren. Their inheritance, our legacy. It must be everybody's aim to leave this world a better place than when we came into it. But the fact is that in the 70 years of my lifetime there are many things that are worse not better. But the UK canals are not one of them.

I was a student at Birmingham University at the end of the 1960s. I took little notice of the Worcester & Birmingham Canal that passed by its campus. There were so few boats using the canal at that time that the water was black and stagnant. It was described locally as ‘a smelly ditch’. Gas Street was known more for the Opposite Lock Club than the Basin. The ‘opposite lock’ referred to the motor racing term rather than the fact that it was near to Worcester Bar.

The canal heritage had all but disappeared. In the 50 years since that time the activists of the BCN Society and the local authorities have been busy. The canals at the centre of Birmingham have become a focal point and an attraction for the many visitors to Britain's second city.

Activism is essential. It may cause trouble for some but that is not the general intention. Inactivity maintains the status quo even if that is a bad thing. Doing nothing would have maintained the Birmingham canals as smelly ditches only useful for the local inhabitants to dump their rubbish. Yes they have to go to the trouble of finding another outlet for their waste!

Highlighting deficiencies

At NABO we want to be activists and encourage activism. We want to challenge unfair or unreasonable practices by the navigation authorities who overreach their powers. We want to bring to light the problems that boat owners have that mar their enjoyment of the marvellous resource. We want to share our experience, knowledge and passion for the waterways. We need to highlight the deficiencies that we find; the problems we encounter; the dangerous and unsafe activities we witness; the defects in structures that will only get worse and lead to failure.

We need to actively encourage good use of scarce resources and balance the environmental impact of boating. We want to be active in encouraging good water management: Sharing locks, closing gates and paddles and perpetuating the good etiquette that has developed over the decades. We want to do all this to encourage more to join in the boating life and experience. It may cause trouble for the inconsiderate, the autocratic, the overbearing and wasteful. But that is how it should be.

I will now return to the area I have scythed down in order to place my table and chairs on the rurally managed towpath (part of a long distance walking route), sip that glass of red wine and muse about the trust’s problems in mobilising its new mowing and veg management contractors. It does not affect the pleasure that I get from boating down the channel between the green biodiverse walls of irises, buddleia and reeds and overhanging willow wands. There is still enough water in the canal here, just enough. It is a good life!