C R T has lost a long legal battle to remove boats from the Grand Union Canal. The appeal judge ruled that although the moorer may have had no ‘right’ to moor boats there that did not mean he had commited any ‘wrong’. And boats can only be removed by CRT under Section 8 when a ‘wrong’ has been committed.
The long-running legal battle between Nigel Moore and British Waterways (BW), now the Canal & River Trust (CRT), over mooring rights on the River Brent section of the Grand Union Canal finally concluded with a ruling handed down on Thursday 14 February by Lord Justice Mummery in the Court of Appeal.
BW had claimed powers to seize Mr Moore’s boats where they were moored on this tidal section below Brentford Gauging Locks and Thames Locks and in mid-2007 Section 8 eviction notices were attached to the boats in conjunction with a joint action with the town centre developers to obtain title to Mr Moore’s premises.
Mr Moore challenged the legality of the notices, on the grounds that he was on a public right of navigation moored against private riparian property. The developers eventually settled out of court, leaving Mr Moore in dispute with BW over the riverbank. This action concluded in 2008, with BW unable to show title of any sort to the riverbank but the statutory powers argument continued in the courts for the next four years.
It appeared that Mr Moore had lost when the High Court decreed in February 2012 that, while he was correct in arguing that his boats needed no licence on this tidal stretch, BW were still entitled to remove his boats in the absence of any regulatory breach, simply because Mr Moore could not prove a positive right to moor boats permanently to his land.
The Appellate Court has finally upheld Mr Moore’s argument that his moorings cannot be held “unlawful” where no relevant law prohibited them. Part of Lord Justice Mummery’s findings says – “BWB has no statutory power to compel removal of vessels from this stretch of the GUC when no wrong is committed by the mooring of the vessels alongside the bank possessed or occupied by the claimant”.
CRT’s London waterway manager, Jon Guest, said: “This case relates to a tidal stretch of the Grand Union Canal in Brentford and, as a result of this judgment, we will need to look at how we treat this stretch differently.”
Mr Moore said – “This latest judgment doesn’t require CRT to treat boaters on this stretch only any differently; it requires it to begin treating all boaters everywhere with equal respect for the law. Acknowledging that that the ‘Rule of Law’ applies to the governors as much as to the governed.”
Thanks to Harry Arnold and Waterway Images for this report and images.
