The owners of sunken boats in the Avon were not “selfish” but “struggling,” a local homelessness charity has said.

Bath and North East Somerset Council has been removing five sunken boats from the river and plans to pursue their owners for the £72,600 cost. But Bath-based Julian House has said this will “victimise” some of the most vulnerable people in the area.

The charity, which runs the homeless hostel on Manver’s Street and an outreach service for boaters and the travelling community, warned that the cost of living and housing crisis had pushed many people into living on the river. Now the charity has criticised the council’s plans to pursue the boat owners for costs — and a local news headline which described them as “selfish.”

A statement on the Julian House website said: “Some of these boat owners are known to Julian House: they were surviving on very low incomes, lacking the means to keep their boats in good repair and have anything more than the most basic insurance — if they had any at all. They certainly could not afford salvage fees when the worst happened. They were not selfish; they were vulnerable and struggling.”

The charity warned: “Pursuing these individuals for recovery of the salvage costs is likely to be a very expensive, and ultimately fruitless exercise for the council. If the owners are traced, they are unlikely to be able to pay these costs. It only serves to further victimise some of the most vulnerable people in B&NES.”

Cllr Tim Ball, Bath and North East Somerset Council’s cabinet member for neighbourhoods, said: “We have been in talks with the boat owners and discussed the direct needs of each one to ensure that we have provided support as necessary — none was needed.

“We are not able to continue to tolerate the pollution and impact of having a number of sunken boats, many for an extended number of years, within this stretch of the river and were forced to take action as a last resort. We want to thank those boat owners who have cooperated with us during the removal.”

Julian House said its Gypsy, Roma, Traveller and Boater (GRTB) Outreach Service is almost unique in the support it provides for people in the community to overcome barriers to support and benefits, but it is only funded to employ one part-time staff member covering all travelling communities in Bath and North East Somerset. Despite demand outstripping capacity, the team said it supported 139 people in travelling communities in 2023-24, referred more than 180 people to receive support winter food and fuel costs, and helped 30 boaters with chronic health conditions or disabilities to apply for adjusted cruising patterns.

The charity said: “We regularly meet people living in leaky boats with no heating, electricity, running water or toilet facilities, but they feel they have nowhere else to go. Often these people have additional support needs, which means they struggle to comply with the strict regulations of the inland waterways.

“Many have previously faced enforcement action by Canal and River Trust. This drives them to stretches of river like the area downstream of Pulteney Weir, which is not managed by a navigation and licencing authority.”

But the council has warned it is a dangerous stretch of river to moor in, and this stretch of the river is the primary flood defence mechanism for the city and can carry an increased volume of water with river levels regularly exceeding the height of the bank. The operation to remove the boars is part of the Better Moorings Project which seeks to address a range of mooring-related matters in Bath and North East Somerset.