On 1st January 2007 British Waterways introduced 5 new licencing terms and conditions. Whilst it has never published these terms and conditions on its website they are broadly in line with its 5 guidelines which in turn it claims give guideance on its final conclusions document.

On 21/3/2007 British Waterways quietly droped these terms and conditions and introduced a single new condition to replace them. To hide what it was doing BW conveniently "forgot" to alter the date of introduction of the terms and conditions (1/4/2006) so that it seems that it has not made a change.

The change that it has made seems to simply reverse a ruling made by a previous Ombudsman in respect of shared owners. As such, I have refered the matter to the current Ombudman and she has confirmed that she will investigate.


The 5 conditions

BW's conclusion document

new conditions (see section 2, last para)

unadulterated version (see section 2, last para)

Whilst I am unable to advise regarding the implications for anyone attempting to licence a shared boat as private, I can say that BW has granted private licences after 21/3/2007. Indeed, I waited until after they had done so before posting.

It seems rather sad that, having spent over £100,000 (my estimate) attempting to circumvent its own implementation of an Ombudsmans recommendation, British Waterways has then reversed that implementation and then tried to hide the fact.

Regards

Allan

I should perhaps have made it clear in the penultimate paragraph of my last post that I was refering to owners within commercially managed schemes who are able to comply with the 5 new conditions.

It is worth noting that since 1/1/2007 British Waterways have issued over 30 private or gold licences to boats within the OwnerShips scheme but no business licences.

I would welcome private emails from any individual, group of owners or company who believe that they have suffered a loss (money, time or anything else!) as a result of the T&C's introduced on 1/1/2007.

Regards

Allan