Canal boats: the last option for affordable city-centre living?
In the grim months of 1985 my first father in law a shop steward at caphouse colliery in Huddersfield kept himself sane fitting out a rusty tub of a canal boat on the Huddersfield Broad Canal. He had purloined a haul of unwanted television cabinets and he did a marvelous job lining the boat. He was from a now lost generation of clever and hardworking skilled people who could turn their hands to anything. He never went back underground and instead with two fellow electricians from the pit set up a successful business servicing dry cleaning machines. I am not quite sure why I am writing all this apart from the fact that reading about the urban solution to a lack of affordable housing in London finding expression in part at least in canal boat living made me think of him.
Things have reached a pretty pass when it comes to this but lets not forget in small towns like Hebden Bridge rural dwellers are doing the same. This article tells us:
With house prices and rents soaring, a growing fleet of narrow boats and other craft is carrying workers into the capital. But the trend is bringing its own problems, including a “fleet versus street” conflict between boaters and those whose properties border the towpath.
In Islington, those living on the water have been accused of being inconsiderate neighbours and jumping the queue for affordable housing. Leisure boaters are not happy either. The influx of a new generation of canal users in a city where there are now sometimes 3,000 boats chasing 2,000 moorings means there is a shortage of places to stop. Overstaying in sites where moorings are officially limited to up to 14 days, sometimes fewer, is a regular occurrence, but when a rarely available permanent mooring in the city can cost a five-figure sum, boat owners are regularly pretending that a journey of a few hundred yards satisfies the continuous cruising requirements as stipulated on their licences.