Number of Part 8 civil procedures used in removing boats from CRT's waters

Response to this request is long overdue. By law, under all circumstances, Canal & River Trust should have responded by now (details). You can complain by requesting an internal review.

Dear Canal & River Trust,

I note that a figure of 180 boats was recently referred to by CRT as having been removed from CRT waters.

How many of these boats were removed from CRT waters using a Part 8 Civil Procedure?

How many of these 180 cases of the removal of a boat were attended by the boat owner?

How many of these 180 cases were defended?

Yours faithfully,

Pam Pickett

Dear Canal & River Trust,
I would appreciate an acknowledgment of the receipt of my request that was sent over 7 days ago.

Yours faithfully,

Pam Pickett

Information Request, Canal & River Trust

Good morning Ms Pickett,

Thank you for your e-mail and request we received last Thursday, 17th July.

We are reviewing our files to identify information relevant to your request and will respond to you as soon as possible or in any case within twenty working days of receipt of your request.

Kind regards,

Sarina Young
Customer Service Co-Ordinator
Canal & River Trust | The Kiln | Mather Road | Newark | NG24 1FB | Tel 01636 675 740 | [mobile number]
Follow my Blogs and the Canal & River Trust’s Customer Service team on Twitter
Please visit our website to find out more about the Canal & River Trust and download our ‘Shaping our Future’ document on the About Us page.

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Information Request, Canal & River Trust

Good morning Pam,

I am writing further to your request for information and we are considering our response to you. I have several questions to ask before we are able to respond more fully. They are:

I note that a figure of 180 boats was recently referred to by CRT as having been removed from CRT waters.
Last year we removed 69 boats from our waters. Please would you let me know where your figure of 180 originates?

How many of these boats were removed from CRT waters using a Part 8 Civil Procedure?
Could you confirm whether you mean Section 8 rather than " Part 8 Civil Procedure ". With any enforcement cases where we believe that there is reasonable likelihood that the boat is the owners home we will always go court under Section 13 procedures.

How many of these 180 cases of the removal of a boat were attended by the boat owner?
I can confirm that we do not record whether boat removals were attended by the boat owner so, I'm afraid that we're not able to supply you with this detail.

How many of these 180 cases were defended?
We are unsure what you mean by "defended". Could you please clarify this for us.

You may also find some of the information published on our website here useful in aiding your understanding http://canalrivertrust.org.uk/publicatio...

Kind regards,

Sarina Young
Customer Service Co-Ordinator
Canal & River Trust | The Kiln | Mather Road | Newark | NG24 1FB | Tel 01636 675 740 | [mobile number]
Follow my Blogs and the Canal & River Trust’s Customer Service team on Twitter
Please visit our website to find out more about the Canal & River Trust and download our ‘Shaping our Future’ document on the About Us page.

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Dear Information Request,
As I gave information from your own reporting on the Nottingham Open Boaters Meeting I am surprised that you find it necessary to 'reply' to my questions, with questions!

I would suggest that such prevarication gives the impression of a trust unwilling to discuss major issues affecting boaters.

I accept that I referred to 180 boats removed by the trust, this should have been 170 (from your own figures 8 of which we were told were removed from the Trent.).

I suggest that you now reply to my original questions?

Yours sincerely,

Pam Pickett

Nigel Moore left an annotation ()

However disingenuous the responses undoubtedly are, there might be something to gain from further clarification.

Removals of boats where no one lives aboard will have been carried out under the s.8 process without bothering to go through any court procedure at all. For a start then, you could ask how many of the 170 were removed following court action for approval of the section 8/13 process.

Once it is clarified how many court cases were involved, you could then ask how many of those were claims filed under Part 8 of the Civil Procedure Rules. And how many [if any] were filed using some other more standard procedure.

No matter that your question re attendance obviously refers to court attendance, this too needs to be re-iterated in some unequivocally clear phrasing, to avoid giving them room to “misunderstand” and take the view that you meant, instead, attendance at the physical removal of the boats following successful court action.

Perhaps too, you could ask how many of those people who were served with Part 8 Claim Forms, subsequently filed a written Defence in response - as another way of saying the same thing you already have, but giving them less wriggle room to act dumb.

Note that the majority of Court Orders – as already published in the list of court cases on CaRT’s website - identify whether the case was filed under CPR 8, so there are no grounds for truthful denial that this information is held. Same goes for the matter of defendant’s attendance. It would be helpful to ask them to publish [on that web page] the judgments in each of the cases as well as the Court Orders, because that ought to definitely clarify the circumstances in each case, and reveal how many were simple rubber-stamping exercises.

Figures quoted elsewhere by CaRT say that 258 boats have been removed in the last four years, so it would be useful to know the time frame for the 170 figure. Wildly different figures are bandied about on this subject, so it is as well to get clarification on numbers “seized” as distinct from merely “removed”.

A useful adjunct to such information as you might obtain would be discovering how many of boats seized are ever reclaimed by the owners on payment of charges demanded, and how many were disposed of following the Torts Interference with Goods procedure.