My last rant about continuous moorers/bridge hoppers! – Sunday 3rd August

I’m going to have my final say about continuous moorers/bridge hoppers on the Lee Navigation - I promise I won’t say anymore!!  It appears to me that there are two types of continuous moorers on the navigation – the ones that commute into London and the ones who don’t work at all.  We have spoken to the two continuous moorers who are sharing the 14 day visitors moorings with us – I hasten to add that I have not said one word to them about how I feel!  One guy works in London in a very interesting occupation – he looks after strippers and works odd hours.  He is an ex-soldier and seems very nice.  The other couple live with their two German shepherds and seem to come back here frequently as I heard him say that they were back for a fortnight.  We have also spoken to an elderly gentlemen who used to live on a boat but is now living in a canal side cottage.  He said that in the six years he lived on the boat he never went off the Navigation.  From what I can see these people don’t seem to think that they are a problem – the fact that out of the stretch available for four narrowboats here there is only room for two visitors doesn’t seem to worry them.  Maybe I am wrong in how I feel and am getting wound up about nothing but I really can see that in coming years mooring in the London area is going to be a major problem.  The train journey into King’s Cross from Hertford is 50 minutes so why pay a fortune to live in a flat in London when you can live on a boat in lovely surroundings with an easy commute into the city.  It’s no use building marinas as the owners will want money and I think that these people aren’t prepared to pay when they can moor for nothing.  The big question is that if there was more affordable housing in London would these people live in a flat – I don’t think so.  I belong to a few boating groups on Facebook and its frightening how many people are saying that they are buying boats and going to bridge hop.  Of course this is not only a problem in London – other cities are experiencing the same predicament.  In years to come will genuine cruisers be able to moor anywhere nice?  C&RT don’t have either the money or the manpower to police the continuous moorers so what is going to happen?

I would like to add that all the above are purely my own feelings and I do not include continuous cruisers in this at all.

OK so now I’ve got that off my chest!  Do I feel any better – not really!