The corruption of British Waterways is now endemic and pervades every thing that they do.
Strong words?
Well take a close look at this…
A view of the infamous pink house at Bathampton.
There is a mooring available on the front line. Also known as Bathampton.
Here is a link to it.
£1476 per year for a 39.37 foot boat, sorry to disappoint you 40′ boat owners. £1476 per year or £28.34 per week.
I have to ask who exactly this mooring is marketed at. It’s a leisure mooring and according to British Waterways not for living on.
So someone out there is willing to pay £30 a week to keep their 40′ boat by a piece of towpath with no parking or security or right to keep anything on the bank. Maybe a working family at an average salary. They can afford this much? For their leisure boat? As part of the family leisure budget? That’s not the cost of the boat, remember, just its storage.
I don’t think they can afford this mooring.
Now someone who can afford £30 a week will be far more likely to have a 57 to 70 foot boat of value £50,000 or more. And they keep their boats in Marinas, or secure offside moorings. They’re not going to leave their pride and joy by the busiest bit of insecure dusty towpath in the Limpley Stoke Valley.
I don’t think they want this mooring.
So….
We are left with a liveaboard. £30 a week as ground rent. Great. Bathampton, tasty little village pied à terre.
They’ll want this mooring. A lot. They may even pay £40 or £50 a week for it.
If I can follow the logic of this, so can the policy makers of British Waterways. British Waterways must be aware that the only market for this mooring is residential.
The same policy makers who state there is a problem with overcrowding caused by too many liveaboard boats. The policy makers who gave an undertaking to Bathampton Parish Council that residential mooring at Bathampton is to be stopped and that leisure moorings are to be reduced by a third. The people who say this mooring cannot be lived on.
As far as I am concerned this kind of double think is corrupt. Such disingenuity is impossible to accept.
The corruption of British Waterways is now endemic and pervades every thing that they do.
I call for the immediate resignation of every member of British Waterways with responsibility for moorings policy and auctions.
Tags: Bathampton, Bathampton Parish Council, congestion, mooring policy, moorings
I spoke to the woman (Maria Nash) who deals with moorings for BW. I don’t think she’s corrupt, just incredibly naive about the whole thing – she genuinely hasn’t thought about it, and even more frustratingly thought I was exaggerating, because they’ve been able to sell the mooring before. She was quite polite but I think she is very used to getting ranted at by boaters, so she was on the defensive pretty much instantly and took a while to calm down.
She did at least concede that there is a problem with the lack of residential moorings in this area.
“the front line” Bathampton ……..?????
Don’t forget that the BW policy is that this space now goes to the highest bidder. You should realise (if you’ve not already worked it out) that BW policy is governed by making the most money. Boaters, especially liveaboards are of course in BW’s eyes a sitting target with or without a residential mooring.
Managing the network in a fair and efficient way for all based on reality rather than hearsay is of course not a high prioirty: http://liveaboard-forum.blogspot.com/2010/02/ka-complaints-another-perfect-balanced.html
All the main national boating user groups are opposed to moorings being allocated to the highest bidder, but BW do it any way. See the 2008 national consultaion “BW long term moorings: allocating vacancies and setting prices” at http://www.british-waterways.co.uk/listening-to-you/consultations-and-reviews/completed-consultation-reports.
With some irony you will note the URL includes the words “listening-to-you”.
Listen and then completely ignore would be more accurate!
Agreed. Corrupt and unreasonable. Far too much £ for nothing at all really. Unlike many other moorings up for auction, this mooring has no services or facilities attached – water, electric etc. BW seem intent on selling off the family silver toe the highest bidder.
Renting a mooring to the highest bidder is not ‘selling the family silver’ Paul, more renting out the family’s daughter. Come on, keep up.
smiles 🙂