Brian from sunny Suffolk <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >Iain Street explained : >> ----- Original Message ----- From: "Adrian Stott" >> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> >> To: <[email protected]> >> Sent: Wednesday, September 24, 2008 3:14 PM >> Subject: [canals-list] Re: Working narrowboats to pay the £50 "broad" beam >> surcharge?! (XP) >> >> >> (snip) >>> The best allocation method seems to be to price the moorings per day >>> at a rate that reduces demand just enough that there are always a few >>> moorings vacant. Then anybody can simply show up and moor, and stay >>> as long as he wants. And BW's revenue, which it needs so badly, is >>> maximised this way. >>> >>> Of course, where the demand is very low, the price per day would be >>> £0. >> Fair enough, but only applicable to "honeypot" sites, > >I object to this and is why I would not overnight in Llangollen. If I >want to stay in the marina (hole with water and landing stages no >security like a proper marina) I will happily pay for it, but I object >to pay to moor on the towing path, that IMO is one of the things my >licence buys me.
And if all the towpath moorings are already occupied when you get there? "Iain Street" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >If the cost of a boat navigating a km is £nil, what is the cost of mooring? The two situations are very different, so different economic rules apply to them. 1. Where by consuming a product (particularly one for which there is a large potential over-supply) a consumer imposes costs on the (monopoly) supplier, it is reasonable for the user to pay a cost-plus price for it. 2. Where a consumer consumes a product in limited supply (such as moorings), then it is reasonable for him to pay the market-clearing price for it. Usually, if that price is higher than the cost of providing additional supply, that supply will be created. For moorings, the cost of providing additional ones is actually rather high, as BW found when it created the basin at Llangollen. 3. BTW there is a third situation, which is when the consumer purchases a supply of a product in advance of use. In this case, he should pay for only the amount of the product he wants to purchase (i.e. expects to use). It is violation of this rule that is a major flaw in BWAF's proposals to charge wider craft more. The owners of those craft want to buy access to only the wider waterways; BWAF is insisting they also buy access to the narrow ones, which they can't use. >> Of course, where the demand is very low, the price per day would be £0. >Fair enough, but only applicable to "honeypot" sites, and liable to misuse >(Let's charge for the moorings for 5 miles either side of ever canalside >pub.........................) There's no need to be specific. The functional rule is simple -- wherever there are no visitor moorings available where visitors with to moor, the price is too low. And vice versa, of couse. >> If I go to a restaurant, but am not very hungry, I buy a small meal >> and pay a small price. I'm not forced to pay for everything on the >> menu. > >But you seem to be in the position of having ordered the mixed grill, which >you can't finish, and want to pay the same price as the peeps who just had >the sausages :-) Nah. I ordered "broad and wide routes only", but the waiter brought "rivers only". This is unappetising, and reveals incompetence in the kitchen, but I'm eating it anyway because I'm hungry and because spicing it up with "narrow canals" makes it indigestible. Trouble is, BWAF wants to make the last the only item on the menu in future. That would really give me stomach trouble. Unlike elastic socks, one size does *not* fit all. Adrian . Adrian Stott 07956-299966
