London boaters angry about new parking charges on Regent's Canal

London boaters angry about new parking charges on Regent’s Canal

New mooring fees introduced by a waterways charity have caused one boater to worry that he will no longer be able to afford to live on London’s canals.

Nick Corrigan has lived on a boat for eight years and often moors on Regent’s Canal.

He is a travelling boater who never stays in one place for more than two weeks at a time. That’s why he needs free moorings on London’s rivers and canals.

The Canal and River Trust, a charity that manages some of London’s rivers, charges for some moorings, which Nick feels is a threat to his way of life.

They first appeared in Little Venice a few years ago. Since then they have spread to the King’s Cross area and Camden and Islington.

These pitches cost between £25 and £35 a night, so a boater using them for a year could spend over £10,000.

Nick said this makes the waterways in central London too expensive for most boaters, pushing them away from the canals they have been able to use for free for hundreds of years.

He fears he will find it hard to stay near his partner in Hackney and his work in Islington if further charges are levied against him.

The boater also stopped near Homerton Hospital earlier this year when he was being treated for cancer. He said he would not have been able to do so if he had been charged.

He also said, “These moorings could be reserved initially, which was great when they were available.”

“But in the last year the prices have been increased.” Places that used to be very busy, safe and beautiful are now empty.

According to the National Bargee Travellers Association, the Canal and River Trust’s Freedom of Information documents show that current fee-paying moorings were reserved only 16.5% of the time in the first half of this year.

Nick also said the daily charges for some moorings came after a series of other changes by the charity that appeared to penalise boaters who only used them occasionally, such as increasing boat licence fees.

He said: “The Canal and River Trust has come up with a lot of ways to get rid of dipping boaters in central London in recent years.”

“But closing all these free moorings will make the River Lea even busier. They told us two years ago that it was already too crowded to be sustainable”

The Canal and River Trust has since stated that it has no plans to charge for moorings in Hackney. It has also recently abolished charges for some moorings in Camden.

Someone from the charity said: “In the last ten years, the number of boats on the capital’s waterways has more than doubled.”

“Most moorings in London are still free, but a few can now be pre-booked to ensure that boating visitors worried about not having a place to moor can still enjoy our busy London waterways.”

“We are doing everything we can to create more moorings where they are needed. In recent years, we have created more than a kilometre of free moorings in central London.”

Mangesh Wakchaure is a veteran writer working at London Lens, focusing on foreign news coverage on a range of topics.