Ron Jones wrote: > Nick wrote: >> Adrian Stott wrote: >>> Steve Wood <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >>> >> It also feels like another argument for the "add a basic mooring >> charge to all licenses, reduce mooring fees that currently include an >> element paid to BW by this much). > > Difficult when not all marinas have to pay a connection charge to BW, so > there would be no easy way for the marina to reduce it's fees - except by > some more expensive burocratic system of claiming the fees back...
I'm always reluctant to suggest increasing costs anywhere, but it's hard to see why - for other than historical reasons - this discrepancy exists. The "right" position to end up with is that everyone pays a contribution to BW as part of their license that allows them to moor a boat whenever they are on BW waters (you can argue that this ought to be something that is in a license anyway, but BW seem to have been allowed to win this one by default). That's then it. It doesn't matter if your boat is sometimes moored on a river off BW navigations, or on your own garden, or in a flashy marina, or at various places around the system as you travel. If you have a BW license you have the right to moor legally, and whether you pay anyone anything for this is a matter between the two of you and nothing for BW. So this would mean, starting from where we are now: - people without any permanent mooring would pay the new fee, but that would be the end of the argument about "continuous cruisers/moorers" - anything residual should be handled by enforcing visitor mooring regs - people with end-of-garden moorings would pay the same or less depending on what the sum was set at. - people in basins with a BW connection charge ought to pay roughly the same, but I bet we'd pay more - people in the situation you've described would pay more - people on BW moorings would pay the same or perhaps a bit less. Not ideal - as I said, I don't want to make anyone pay more. But the current situation where those moored on their own land pay more than those moored on various bits of BWs is clearly iniquitous.
