Wednesday 22 November 2017

That sinking feeling.

Following a successful legal battle to charge static vessels a full river toll despite the vessel having no navigation ability, The Blessed Authority is making plans to bolster its income having identified a static ‘vessel’  that has been hidden from view for nearly three decades.

Sited in the River Brew at Arkle, the ‘vessel’ was discovered during a routine hydrographic inspection recently and has been identified as an 1989 Datsun Sunny.

Our intrepid Shrimpy reporter was dispatched to Blessed HQ  and spoke to the Curator Fiscal, Nick Yermone, at Yeugh House.

“Coupled with our recent success in the courts to charge a full navigational rover toll a large static barge that is permanently tied up in a marina, we are fast-tracking a programme of similar ‘Barge Charges’ and seeking all past tolls too. This will generate a significant amount of money which will help massively with the forthcoming Christmas Party.”

Opaque asked; “But this is not a vessel, it’s a car. How can you possibly charge a toll for that?”

Nick explained, “We have a long history of interpretation of the law and of language. We have a large, dedicated team of people working in these two key areas, in fact, there are more people in our Obfuscation Department than in Planning! We are absolutely confident that we can reclassify a dumped car as a vessel. And, as the DVLA records can be traced back many years, we will easily be able to locate the owner or, perhaps, their descendants.’

“If we are successful in this, we will roll the programme out further and are planning a full sonar survey of all the waterways looking for similarly dumped vehicles, bicycles and childrens scooters. Where we see the real income though is in the various Wherries that were deliberately scuppered on Ranworth Broad and the plethora of mobile phones that await retrieval from virtually every mooring.”