Help mx Lad & Family get permission to Moor in Cambridge!

***Jan 2020 Edit: Since this petition last was circulated, my ex husband abandoned the kids & I on our houseboat, I was diagnosed as Autistic and came out as non-binary. Despite being a single parent and disabled, Cambridge City Council are STILL refusing to give me a mooring license, whilst giving them to others in less need eg. Single white males who don’t live in cambridge. Please Sign & Share if you haven’t already done so***

Miss Lad is a full time secondary school teacher who has served the community of Cambridgeshire as a keyworker over 13 years, teaching at schools including Chesterton, St Mary's Upper, CRC, Castle School and is currently the Food & Nutrition teacher at Parkside & Coleridge in the city centre.

Miss Lad lives with her husband who works full time as a maintenance man, and 3 children, who all attend Central Cambridge schools, onboard their Dutch Barge Trio II, listed on both the UK & NL historic ships registers. Trio II also has a historic link to Cambridge since her wheelhouse was built from the eaves of the, now demolished, historic pub The Penny Ferry/pike n Eel.

Moored legally, whilst on the council mooring waiting list, with extremely kind permission of HC Moss developers, on their site at Water Street, Chesterton for the past 3 years, the family had thought that this would give the council plenty of time to consider their case, yet now that the new houses are built and they must leave their current mooring, the council has told them that they will evict the family if they moor on council land, which are the only other moorings available and that they should instead, sell their beloved home and apply for a council house.

The family is ethnically diverse, consisting of several minorities, and as such is protected by law, particularly when considering Miss Lad's Roma status which gives her the right to live as a traveller. To suggest moving into a council house is highly insulting and discriminatory and goes against the family's right to a traveller way of life which is entrenched in law.

If forced by the council out of Cambridge by eviction, the family would lose their jobs and school places (since the schools need to be within cycling distance for a child) and would ultimately lead to repossession of their home as they would be unable to keep up repayments on it and they would be made homeless. In this way the council intends to deliberately make this family homeless and is discriminating against the children's right to an education.

In addition, forcing an experienced teacher out of a Central city school at a time when the profession is in crisis and the school will therefore find it very difficult to recruit, thus seriously affecting the education of hundreds of young people, as well as Miss Lad's Year 11 form group, who are in the middle of their GCSEs, is disastrous.

Whether the council admits it or not, living on a boat IS affordable housing and we are in a housing crisis and instead of being persecuted and evicted by the council, the family should be applauded for finding a creative solution that does not make them a burden on existing council house stock which they would not take up anyway and the council should accommodate them.

The family is also a shining example of off-grid living, with solar energy and a river water filtration system. In this way they are no burden on the national grid or water companies which fits in perfectly with the council's own plans for a sustainable city.

There are plenty of mooring spaces available, yet the council recently chose to give 5 of them to single white males with existing moorings and jobs outside of Cambridge, instead of this diverse and hard working family of 5 in desperate need of a mooring, who all work/ attend schools in the city centre, which seems ludicrous.

A family of 5 on 1 boat compared with 5 single men on 5 separate boats is also a much more efficient use of moorings and large families obviously contribute much more to communities than single households.

The council are also very aware of the worrying trend amongst many of those with existing council moorings to rent them out for a profit, yet the council refuse to take action against them, preferring instead to evict working class families like Miss Lad's, further gentrifying the city centre with moorings used for leisure not their sole residence, as they also intend for the working class living on the Railings along Riverside.

By signing you are asking the Chief Executive Antoinette Jackson and the Strategy & Resources Committee who are currently reviewing the mooring policy, that Miss Lad & her family be given permission to moor in the city centre with immediate effect.

Please also share as widely as possible.

Thank you so much for your kind support.