{"id":804,"date":"2025-08-30T13:07:50","date_gmt":"2025-08-30T13:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/?p=804"},"modified":"2025-08-30T13:08:53","modified_gmt":"2025-08-30T13:08:53","slug":"britains-canal-boats-are-a-great-lifestyle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/britains-canal-boats-are-a-great-lifestyle\/","title":{"rendered":"BRITAIN’S CANAL BOATS ARE A GREAT LIFESTYLE!!!!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Britain\u2019s canal boat nomads fear new rules will sink their way of life<\/h1>\n

Narrowboats can moor for free on England\u2019s increasingly crowded rivers and canals, at times alongside some of London\u2019s most exorbitantly expensive real estate.<\/p>\n

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ON THE RIVER STORT, England \u2014 It takes only minutes for Jenny Poulton to get her house underway.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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On an August afternoon, she pulled up steel stakes, locked the cats inside and was off, moving her colorful 60-foot canalboat from one spot on this suburban London waterway to another, as the law declares she must do at least every two weeks.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThis will do nicely,\u201d Poulton said two hours and three hand-operated locks later, cutting the engine at a weedy stretch of bank. It was within bicycle range of groceries, pubs, the Harlow train station and a 40-minute commute to her part-time teaching job in the city \u2014 and home for the next fortnight.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n

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This is Poulton\u2019s rhythm as a \u201ccontinuous cruiser,\u201d a booming population of nomadic boaters who live on Britain\u2019s canals and navigable rivers without paying for a permanent mooring spot, sometimes in central London, flanked by some of Britain\u2019s most exorbitantly expensive real estate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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They\u2019ve been a waterway fixture for decades, a perpetual-motion village of eccentric boaters, drawn by the lifestyle or driven to it by Britain\u2019s soaring housing costs.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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But now, Poulton and others say their life afloat is under threat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Jenny Poulton, 33, makes a raised garden bed on the top of her boat in Roydon. (Photos by Jos\u00e9 Sarmento Matos\/For The Washington Post)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Poulton prepares tea with water she filtered from the canal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Poulton steers her boat from Roydon to Harlow, in Essex.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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In November, the Canal and River Trust (CRT), the nonprofit organization charged with managing 2,000 miles of historic canals and rivers in England and Wales, will announce an overhaul of regulations and licensing fees that itinerant boaters fear could force them off the water.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Tensions have been rising between the managers of Britain\u2019s canals, others who use them, and the nomadic narrowboaters, revered by some as bohemian travelers and disdained by others as maritime squatters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI think there\u2019s this feeling that we\u2019re getting away with something, that we\u2019ve found a loophole to live cheap,\u201d said Poulton, who spends about half of her time in the posh waterways of central London. \u201cYes, some people are out here because they can\u2019t afford anything else, but many of us are out here because we love it.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Among the changes believed to be under consideration: higher license fees, permit systems to limit the number of continuous cruisers in some areas and rules that would require them to travel more miles each year, potentially splitting them from shoreside jobs and schools where children are enrolled.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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CRT said it was too early to speculate on specific recommendations that will emerge from the independent commission that is reviewing the rules. But an update of regulations and enforcement powers is desperately needed, the agency said, to meet rising demand for space throughout the 200-year-old canal network, particularly in and around London.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Poulton stops at a canal lock to continue steering her boat on the way to Harlow.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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There are more than 8,500 nomads on the water, making up a quarter of all boats. In London, itinerant boats now outnumber by 2 to 1 those who pay thousands of pounds a year for fixed mooring spots.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The total number of licensed boats \u2014 including commercial vessels, residential boats with permanent private moorings and continuous cruisers \u2014 climbed 15 percent in the past decade, and the number of continuous cruisers more than doubled, according to CRT figures.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhen you have a finite amount of canal space you can have contentions among the users,\u201d said Matthew Symonds, the head of CRT boating programs. \u201cThe growth has been significant in some areas.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Other recreational boaters, those who keep their boats in marinas or private moorings but cruise the network, say nomads hog limited mooring spaces and that some flout the rule to move every fortnight. Waterfront landowners and developers bemoan dilapidated boats and, at times, unfriendly boaters.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe\u2019ve had more problems with it since covid and the cost-of-living crisis,\u201d said Ian Burrows, a local government official who oversaw the recent removal of dozens of boats that had colonized a stretch of the Thames in front of Hampton Court Palace.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Andrew Hamilton, a former lockkeeper on the Thames, said asking liveaboards to move along was a constant chore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cSome people would just stay,\u201d Hamilton said. \u201cThe moorings would be blocked by people, some of whom were destitute and some of whom were simply bloody-minded.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Boats line Regent’s Canal in front of Broadway Market in the Hackney district of London.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Continuous cruisers say the overcrowding complaints are overblown, and that boaters should expect London\u2019s waterways to be as crowded as its streets are for cars, and subways are for passengers.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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The cruisers have their own complaints about CRT\u2019s management of the waterways, including a lack of affordable mooring space, inadequate or inoperable sewage pump-out stations, and riverbanks in need of dredging.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Nomads see themselves as a valid constituency, albeit one without fixed addresses. In being targeted, many say, snobbery is afoot. Or afloat.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cThere\u2019s always a bit of a conflict between scruffy boats and shiny boats,\u201d Alain Gough-Olaya, 39, a psychiatric nurse, said aboard his not-so-shiny narrowboat on the edge of London\u2019s Islington neighborhood, a cat winding between his legs in a cabin lined with books and cooking pots. \u201cIt often seems the CRT is saying you can\u2019t be on the water so much because you\u2019re the wrong sort of person.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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CRT is not trying to rid the canals of nomadic boaters, Symonds said. He agrees with those who credit a resurgence of liveaboards in the 1960s with bringing life back to canals that had become bleakly moribund after cargo transport disappeared earlier in the century.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWe love having boats of all sorts on the canals,\u201d he said. \u201cWe just have to manage the network fairly for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Alain Gough-Olaya, 39, stands in the boat where he has lived for nine years, while it is moored along Regent’s Canal close to Haggerston.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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A map shows the canal and river network in England and Wales managed by the Canal and River Trust.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Boats are moored along Regent’s Canal by Victoria Park in the Tower Hamlets district of London.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Only a minority of itinerant boaters violate the rules, Symonds acknowledged, but all add demand on the locks, pump-out stations and other canal infrastructure. Last year, CRT began imposing a 10 percent surcharge on cruisers over the yearly license fee all boaters pay. It will rise to 25 percent by 2028.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cIt\u2019s just a matter of how much you\u2019re on the water,\u201d Symonds said. \u201cContinuous cruisers are always on the water.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Britain\u2019s canal boat nomads fear new rules will sink their way of life Narrowboats can moor for free on England\u2019s increasingly crowded rivers and canals, at times alongside some of London\u2019s most exorbitantly expensive real estate. ON THE RIVER STORT, England \u2014 It takes only minutes for Jenny Poulton to get her house underway. On […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-804","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=804"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":806,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/804\/revisions\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=804"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=804"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sterlingcooper.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=804"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}