CRT is asking mooring providers to sign up to a scheme to help to cut licence fraud by checking that the mooring details on boat licence applications are correct.
The Canal & River Trust wants mooring operators to confirm that the records the charity holds for boats’ moorings is correct. This will ensure the Trust is monitoring boats against the correct terms and conditions, and will give mooring operators the confidence that their sites aren’t being used fraudulently.
The roll-out follows a pilot involving twelve mooring operators, with the help of the Association of Waterway Cruising Clubs and British Marine. Following a routine check of the sites, the Trust provided the operators with two lists of information to check, comprising boats recorded as having a mooring at the site but not seen, and boats seen moored at the site but not being recorded as having a mooring there. The operators reviewed the lists, following which the boats’ records were updated and, where necessary, boaters were contacted to get an update on the home mooring status for their boats.
The Trust will now ask mooring operators if they would like to sign up to the scheme, which at this stage will run on an opt-in basis. Mooring operators that wish to be involved should contact the Trust via customer services on 030 3040 4040 or the ‘contact us’ page of the charity’s website.
Jon Horsfall, interim head of boating at the Trust, said: “Our boat licence customer support team does a fantastic job making sure that boaters have the information they need to use the waterways fairly. We want to make sure that the data we hold for boaters is up-to-date, so that we can work with them as effectively as possible. The new mooring validation process will also be good news for mooring operators, who will be able to check that the boats on their moorings are the ones that are meant to be there.”