On Thu, 17 May 2007 10:07:34 +0100, Adrian wrote: >If the mooring price were £1 million/year, perhaps five moorings would >satisfy the whole demand on the network. OTOH, if moorings were >priced at 1p/year, I guess it would be impossible to create enough to >satisfy the demand. Somewhere in between, there is a price where >supply and demand balance. Current prices are below that.
I think that this shows both an error in the thinking of those behind this plan, and it's greatest danger. Let's look at the last extreme first. Even if moorings were 1p/year I doubt the demand would be that much greater than the current, probably no more than 2 or 3 times it I'd say. - After all, a lot of people don't have a boat and don't want to get a boat. And a lot of people who would like to get a boat cannot afford the capital and running costs outside the marina charges. This is the error. Treating the supply and demand for moorings the same as the supply and demand for sausages. I'd be prepared to bet that sufficient free moorings could be provided to meet the demand, without running out of suitable and available land. It obviously couldn't happen - no one would subsidise it - but it becomes possible (whereas it would be impossible to satisfy the demand for free sausages). Now lets look at the other end, which shows the danger. If you were starting de novo, then moorings at £1M a year would indeed satisfy the demand. But you aren't starting de novo. You are staring with however many hundred thousand boats there already are. What happens to them when mooring prices go up above what the owners can actually afford. The owner can hardly sell the boat - without a mooring who would buy it (and with moorings at £1M a year, no-one who can afford the boat is going to want anything other than a brand-new, custom designed and built one). So where do they go? I think to discuss pushing the price of moorings up significantly, without addressing this issue is - frankly - disgusting. -- On-line canal route planner: http://www.canalplan.org.uk (Waterways World site of the month, April 2001) My Reply-To address *is* valid, though likely to die soon
