The Department for Energy and Net Zero has finally made the Energy Support Scheme – Alternative Funding Grant available to around 7000 liveaboard itinerant boaters with boats registered on Canal and River Trust waters – Below is a short National Bargee Travellers Association statement about this development.

Pamela Smith, Chair of the National Bargee Travellers Association (NBTA):

“After the great efforts of the NBTA and others – including the National Association of Boat Owners, Friends, Families and Travellers, Derbyshire Gypsy Liaison Group, London Gypsies and Travellers, and the Canal & River Trust – in campaigning for the energy grant, 7000 boaters without home moorings on Canal & River Trust waters are now finally able to receive the £600 grant.

Together, boaters have fought hard for our community and won a victory. This grant is not a gift from the government but the result of concerted action and pressure to hold them to their word. The NBTA celebrates that effort and demonstrates what communities like ours can do when we come together and organise for recognition and protection of our way of life.

However, many people – including itinerant boaters on non-Canal & River Trust waters, some liveaboards with a home mooring, and those living itinerantly on land – remain excluded despite the grant being promised to every household in the UK. Of 900,000 people thought to be eligible for the grant, around 700,000 are still in limbo. The NBTA will continue to communicate with the government in support of and solidarity with these communities to ensure that the government truly delivers on that promise.”

Image: Guy Smallman