Corporate report

Non-Tidal River Thames Regulation and Enforcement Plan 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024

Updated 1 April 2024

How we carry out our regulation and enforcement service

The non-tidal River Thames is an Environment Agency controlled waterway, we want all river users to enjoy the river and to be safe and lawful. We will provide a professional regulation and enforcement service for the river, and ensure all river users have access to the right information to help them understand their legal responsibilities to comply.

Our lock staff and river patrol crews will actively provide regulatory advice and guidance to customers whilst navigating the river, visiting or using our locks sites and mooring boats to our land.

This plan explains the actions we will aim to take between 1 April 2023 and 31 March 2024 to help to ensure this.

Our vision

Our vision is to substantially reduce offending on the river and the impact on people and the environment by;

• stopping illegal activity from occurring or continuing
• bringing illegal activity under regulatory control and into compliance with the law
• providing advice and guidance where appropriate or taking court action

We will also seek to support the government’s 25 Year Environment Plan. By enhancing the beauty, heritage and engagement with the natural environment and reducing misuse of the river it can be enjoyed, used and cared for by everyone.

Our approach

We will use our new Strategy for reducing Environmental Offending. This is based on a proactive approach putting the 4P model of law enforcement at the centre of our thinking. We will:

Prepare by producing intelligence based regime enforcement plans to assess issues, trends and emerging threats. Allocate resources proportionately and respond in line with our policy.

Prevent by using information campaigns and education to protect customers and the environment. Persistent low-level offending will be tackled to ensure it does not escalate into significant and serious categories and disrupt offending and criminal activity.

Protect by delivering outcomes in the Environment Agency Enforcement & Sanctions Policy. We will stop offending and return to compliance. We will identify and target those who have the greatest impact.

Pursue by using intelligence analysis to target offenders. We will work with other partners to share information and resources to achieve our joint objectives. We will investigate offending in line with our Enforcement & Sanctions Policy. The Offence Response Options (ORO) documents set out the options available to offences we regulate.

We will also work in partnership with other organisations to increase water safety. Our partners include:

• police
• fire and rescue services
• local councils
• Maritime and Coastguard Agency
• Royal National Lifeboat Institution and Lowland Search & Rescue
• HMRC
• Boat Safety Scheme Office (BSSO)
• other navigation authorities including the Canal and River Trust and the Port of London Authority
• other government enforcement agencies including Immigration Enforcement, Border Force and National Crime Agency

Ensuring the safety of our staff

We need to ensure that all our staff stay safe and grow. Our enforcement officers will use body worn video cameras for their own and others’ safety. We will always be open about when we are using these cameras. We may also operate CCTV at some of our lock sites. Using these cameras also helps to:

• deter illegal activity
• capture the best possible evidence
• reassure the public

Our staff will be professional and fair when they deal with you. In return we ask you to respect our staff. We will not tolerate threatening, abusive or violent behaviour.

In such circumstances our statement on managing unacceptable customer behaviour helps staff manage these situations and provides information to customers on the steps they may take.

Our communication

We want to be visible in the work that we do. Sharing our enforcement outcomes helps us to be transparent and accountable. Doing so also raises public awareness which:

• reassures legitimate river users
• educates river users about their legal responsibilities
• deters potential offenders

When we receive enquiries, we aim to meet our customer service commitment. We cannot provide specific information where doing so would prejudice;

• an investigation
• operational action
• the rights of anyone involved

We cannot and will not task members of the public to provide us with information on suspected offences. We are happy to receive information directly from members of the public who believe they may have witnessed a navigation offence. We will not respond to individual reports and we are not resourced to investigate all reports.

When we receive allegations of illegal activity we will aim to record and evaluate the information. Where we can we will use it to inform any new or ongoing investigations. This adds to our intelligence picture on the river and enables us to be targeted in our work.

Our powers and duties

We can only carry out enforcement action where we have a power to do so. We will be clear if we believe a matter that has been reported to us is not within our power or duty to regulate.

We use our powers to carry our duties, we may also have additional powers to enforce a matter which is not a duty, these are called discretionary powers; we may choose not to exercise our discretionary powers on a matter which is not our duty to regulate.

Our regulation and enforcement priorities

We have identified 2 priority areas of illegal activity on the River Thames. These are:

• evading boat registration requirements and payment of fees
• endangering other river users

We will focus our regulation and enforcement response on targeting these activities for the whole river, while recognising that our intelligence has identified specific ‘hot spots’.

Protecting income

The fees due to us by law provide an essential revenue which is used to manage the river. When users evade payment of these fees, they are acting illegally and reducing our ability to maintain the river for everyone.

Powered boat registration

Boat registration ensures that registered boats comply with Boat Safety Scheme standards and maintain minimum appropriate insurance. This protects the safety of all river users.

To ensure boat owners get the correct registration we will:

• raise awareness of the need to register and deter registration evasion
• carry out planned enforcement campaigns and operations
• give a high profile enforcement response where we suspect or detect evasion

Our enforcement operations focus on known areas of illegal activity, including places where boats enter the River Thames. We will also carry out checks at our lock sites and from our patrol boats to identify offences.

All boats based in marinas are subject to our registration requirements. We aim to bring marina registration compliance rates into line with that of the ‘main river’.

We have observed an increase in boat owners offering short term static accommodation. We view this as commercial activity and plan to ensure that such boats are:

• correctly registered as commercial boats
• correctly insured
• compliant with the correct higher standard of the non-private Boat Safety Scheme requirements
• compliant with the correct requirements of other regulatory bodies e.g. Regulatory Reform (Fire Safety) Order 2005 as required by fire rescue service

We will achieve this through targeted campaigning and response to intelligence.

We have detected some boat owners may act fraudulently by declaring the dimensions of their boat incorrectly when applying for registration. We will routinely check and measure actual boat dimensions and compare with the dimensions registered by owners and recorded on our Navigation Licensing System. Where appropriate we will take enforcement action.

Unpowered boat registration

We will routinely check and enforce the registration of unpowered boats including stand-up paddleboards, canoes, rowing boats, inflatable dinghies. We will issue advice and guidance to the users of any recreational equipment that we do not consider to be safe to use on the River, such as inflated lilos, inner tube or other novelty inflated pool toys.

Accommodation structures (Section 60 licensable structures)

Licensing accommodation structures (also known as Section 60 licences) on the River Thames enables us to protect the public navigation and manage any impact on flooding and the natural environment.

We will identify unauthorised private and commercial structures and breaches of licence conditions. This also includes a licence condition which prohibits the mooring of an unregistered boat to a licensed structure. We will give owners of such structures the opportunity to put things right. If the illegal activity is not corrected our enforcement response may include:

• revoking an existing licence and treating the structure as unlawful
• enforcement action against any unregistered boats moored, including prosecution of the boat owner and removal of the boat.
• requiring owners to remove unlawful structures
• prosecuting the owners of unlawful structures

Our designated moorings and open riverbanks

We know that mooring space can be highly sought after particularly at popular locations, and that users of the River Thames value our moorings. We aim to keep our designated short stay moorings clear for legitimate use in line with our mooring position statement. We aim to regulate other mooring to our open riverbanks, where mooring facilities are not provided but boat owners may stop overnight if mooring is possible.

We will regulate and enforce this through a combination of approaches that we deem appropriate to the mooring location.

Our regulation and enforcement responses for unauthorised mooring activity may include a combination of; charges issued by an authorised moorings management provider; an enforcement notice issued by ourselves; formal issue of possession proceedings. These actions may either proceed as civil action through a County Court, or as criminal action through a Magistrates Court. Our mooring locations will have clear signage our local lock staff can also provide this information.

In cases of persistent abuse we will take enforcement action that may include:

• removing the boat and charging the owner for the cost of doing so
• prosecuting the owner of the boat

Doing so protects public safety and the environment as well as deterring future misuse and promoting navigation.

Ensuring the safety of river users

We will seek to enforce laws that protect the safety of people and the environment.

Dangerous navigating

A common form of illegal and antisocial activity that we observe is failure to navigate with care and caution. This includes navigating;

• under the influence of drink or drugs
• while causing unreasonable and avoidable disturbance (creating excessive wash)
• at an unsafe speed
• faster than the speed limit of 8 kilometres per hour in a powered boat
• a personal watercraft e.g. jet ski, e-foil, not designed for use on inland waterways at slow speed

These activities endanger the offender, other river users, wildlife and the environment. We use speed measuring devices to disrupt and deter speeding boats and to collect evidence. We evaluate witness reports of dangerous navigation and will investigate when we have enough evidence. We may evaluate video evidence of speeding boats captured on CCTV and mobile phones by members of the public, we may ask a witness to provide a statement and attend court.

We also detect trends of when and where dangerous navigation is more common. We plan operations in these areas where we use our speed detection equipment. These operations reduce unsafe activity by deterring offenders and educating river users.

Giving advice and guidance often results in more careful boat handling. When users offend more than once we will escalate our enforcement response appropriately. This can include formal warnings or prosecution.

Incorrect and missing boat names

It is a legal requirement of registration for boat owners to correctly display the registered boat name. Doing so protects the owner’s property as it enables identification of:

• owners of boats that have come adrift
• missing or stolen boats
• boats involved in collisions, helping river users with insurance claims

We will take appropriate action for every boat found without the name correctly displayed. If a boat owner persistently refuses to display the correct registered boat name, we may refuse to register the boat and require the boat to be removed from the waterway.

Immediately hazardous, wrecked and abandoned boats

We safeguard river users and the environment by identifying boats that may cause a hazard. We work with the Boat Safety Scheme Office, fire and rescue services and other partners to reduce the risk posed by such boats.

We carry out or support public safety incident investigations and boat fire investigations, ensuring that we:

• investigate promptly, to provide learning to The Boat Safety Office
• provide timely, accurate reports to required standards
• highlight safety concerns

Where boats are wrecked, due to fire or otherwise, we will aim to reduce the hazard to navigation and any resulting river pollution. This will include marking the wreck with navigation marker buoys if appropriate.

We work to remove wrecked and abandoned boats from our own land and from the navigation channel where we can. We prioritise the removal of hazardous boats and assess others in the same way as our other enforcement responses.

We will always seek to recover our enforcement or removal costs from the boat owner. Boats that are wrecked or abandoned on third party land are usually the responsibility of the boat owner or riverbank owner. Where possible we will seek to have any such boats that cause an obstruction removed by the responsible party.

River events

When travelling through a reduced navigation channel at an organised river event, our river patrol crews will routinely check that conditions with respect to the minimum width of the navigation channel is being complied with and that adequate numbers of safety boats and marshals are present.

How we measure our success

We publicise our regulation and enforcement outcomes where we can through press briefings and social media. We measure success against each of our priorities individually.

Boat registration

We will record:

• total number of boat registrations checked
• number of unregistered reports issued
• actual income protected, calculated from the registrations purchased and prosecutions following unregistered reports

We will measure the success of our enforcement action by the income protected. By targeting our enforcement response we will not carry out as many checks in areas where we know compliance to be high. This may result in a low reported compliance rate that is not reflective of the river as a whole.

Accommodation structures (Section 60 licensable structures)

We aim to increase the proportion of known accommodation structures currently licensed. Due to changes in ownership of accommodation structures we will always have a proportion of structures that are not licensed. Usually about 10% of all known structures will be part way through the application process.

Our designated moorings and open riverbanks

We will record the number of notices issued to boats requiring them to move from our land. We will consider our enforcement response to be successful if it reduces the impact caused by abuse of our moorings and land.

Dangerous navigating

We record the details of river users observed to be navigating without care and caution. We aim to reduce the proportion of individuals who reoffend after we have found them to be navigating dangerously.

Incorrect and missing boat names

We will know we have achieved our aim when we observe a reduction in the number of boats not displaying the registered name.

Immediately hazardous, wrecked and abandoned boats

We maintain a record of wrecked boats on the river. We will consider our action to be successful if this number reduces due to our enforcement and engagement with riverbank or boat owners.