‘Continuous cruiser’ wins battle against canal eviction

Jeff Zedic at home on his boat.

Boat dweller Jeff Zedic has won his battle against the Canal and River Trust to keep his home on the water.

In September the 51 year-old teacher received an email from the Canal and River Trust (CRT), the organisation that regulates canal usage, saying he had broken the terms of his licence and had 28 days to leave the canal, or his boat would be destroyed.

Since May Zedic had been under a six-month restricted ‘continuous cruiser’ licence for boat dwellers who, according to the CRT, ‘don’t move far enough’ or ‘don’t have the right pattern of movement’.

Continuous cruisers must move their boat every 14 days and moor in different spots, rather than moving back and forth between the same places.

The CRT is supposed to send a mid-point reminder three months before the six-month licence expires, yet Zedic says he received his notice only six weeks before the end of his licence.

He was shocked to discover that the CRT was requiring him either to leave, or to purchase a residential mooring at a cost of £4,000 a year or more.

“I know I haven’t done anything wrong, but it’s still a very frightening situation. My boat is my home, they told me they were going to destroy it and that I couldn’t do anything about it.

“The only time I stayed more than 14 days in the same place was because my boat was damaged and I could not cruise. They also accused me of travelling back and forward on the canal but it was only to get some fuel. It’s ridiculous,’ said Zedic.

With help from a campaign launched by the National Bargee Travellers’ Association, Zedic finally got his licence back, but he had to go through a long and stressful process to do so. “I had to request the data recorded by British Waterways which shows precisely the movement of my boat to prove they were wrong.”

The CRT have again given Zedic a six-month restricted licence. Zedic has been living on the canal for seven years and he cannot understand why the Trust will not give him a full one-year licence.

Marcus Trower, deputy chair of the National Bargee Travellers’ Association, said Zedic’s story is not an exception: “We believe the CRT is trying to have dwellers pay for expensive home moorings, or simply to force them out.”

Trower accuses the Trust of focusing too much on financial profit. “They want the canal to be this idealistic place so they can sell tours to tourists, they tend to consider our community as slums.”

The Canal and River trust declined to comment on the case, but a spokesperson said: “While we can’t comment on individual cases, we will only restrict a licence if a boater has repeatedly broken the terms they signed up to.

“We always talk to boaters who look like they’re running into trouble and try to sort things out in a way that works for everybody involved.

“Refusing to renew a licence is the last thing we want to do: we’d prefer boaters to play by the rules and we will continue to monitor boaters to ensure fairness.”