‘Marinas need the mooring fees rise’
Monday 16th February 2009, 2:29PM GMT.
INCREASES in mooring fees will raise about £250,000 in additional income per year which will be used to improve the marinas, Public Services has said.
The new charges will also bring the marinas more into line with those in other ports.
Harbour master Captain Peter Gill (pictured( has defended the increases, which have been branded ‘ludicrous’ by boat owners.
He said owners of larger vessels should pay more because their craft caused more wear-and-tear to the island’s marinas.
From April, PSD will introduce charge bands for different-sized boats. The longer the boat, the higher the band – owners are charged by the square metre.
This change has meant that owners with boats up to 7.99m. in length will see their costs increase by 10% but, at the other end of the scale, vessels of more than 16m. will have to pay 150% more than last year.
Captain Gill said this meant that increases for the majority of local boat owners would be kept down as most have smaller vessels.
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Why does it seem that most of the marina non essential (pressure cleaning pontoons, etc)
maintenance seems to take place on a weekend. Call me an old cynic – but nothing to do with double time??
And – lets not mention the QEII electronic tidal gauge!
With a price hike like this the markets going to flooded with unsaleable (unsailable!)boats.
Thanks a lot Harbour Master – and please don’t compare us with Jersey!
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Come offm it Chris,
some people pay thousands of pounds £s for pleasure boats; then expect to berth them safely for next to nothing.
typical of the rich to try to get something for nothing; 10% is peanuts; 20% would be more appropriate.
After all said and done you have taken away from the ordinary man/woman, the places that were for the use of the Islanders, liken the Old Harbour and such like marinas.
If you don’t like the prices. park your boats outside territorial waters.
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Eric. I payed £10,000 for my boat. I will be expected to pay £2000 a year to moor it in below standard marinas. No no no no no no!!!
Watch all the bays fill up!! I also wish people would stop imagining every boat owner to be residents of Fort George.
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As a states worker I have had to settle for RPI or less pay rises so why should I have to pay such big hikes?
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Mick says it all..”below standard marinas” that’s the point of the rise to improve services and facilities. I understand all expenditure in and around the harbours comes from the revenue taken in from port users not general states money so it seems fair that the money generated from these rises will be used to improve facilities.
Whether it is fair to increase the fees just so that they are in line with other marinas is another matter and I doubt that £250,000 extra cash in the pot will go very far.
Lets also hope that this will not deter the visitors who boat here because we were cheaper
than other destinations in the area at a time when Guernsey needs to retain and generate more income.
This could be yet another spectacular own goal by the authorities that will ultimately result in similar revenue than before the rises but raised from fewer boaters, those that can afford it.
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>>This could be yet another spectacular own goal by the authorities that will ultimately result in similar revenue than before the rises but raised from fewer boaters, those that can afford it<<
Or part of the plan to push out all the prols from the Town Marinas and hand them over to the well off. Part of the ‘tried for growth but failed miserably’ strategy.
Didn’t LT want 6% growth per annum for 0/10 to be a success? Clearly that’s not going to happen.
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Some comments are aimed at The Harbour Master. He is not responsible for political decisions. I think our berthing standards are excellent and the marinas well run. As a larger boat owner I would be happy to pay a little more provided smaller boat owners pay a little less. The point has been made that large boats create higher maintenance to the berths. Please bear in mind that larger boats have a greater beam so they pay considerably more already as the calculation is based on length and beam. Also consider that two small boats berthed alongside inevitably have a substantial gap between them for which no revenue is generated.
These increases are being imposed by Public Services under a mandate that allows them to set the mooring rates without reference to the States. Questions are however now being raised as to whether this mandate allows them to change the method of calculating the charges. If it transpires the mandate does not give them these powers then the whole issue will have to go to the States for a decision. This will at least allow open consultation which is what should have happened in the first place on an Island that prides itself on being open, fair and democratic.
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You don’t get it do you;
You get a safe parking for your boat; in places taken from the ordinary people who can’t afford most good things in life.
You pay your taxes for a car, and for a parking place (garage where available) but when it comes to your boat you squirm at having to pay higher parking place.
The ordinary man in the street (No boat no car) has on many occasion without knowing it, has to subsidise many of these places, places for people who moan at having to pay up.
Ask the man in the street what he thinks of money he could do with but is used for those who now moan. On ‘yer bike-
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Cliff Edge’
Your points are well made. Two thoughts. The large boats cause more wear and tear was never a particularly strong argument. It was in effect a ‘luxury tax’, which I am for but wish Harbours had made a stronger case rather than just announcing badly through the media.
Poor old salty sea-dog Gill was hung out to dry on this one. Surely the political masters must have known such a hike would have caused a furore; leaving the Harb’ Master to argue the case and fend off the medai was very unfair. Naughty Bernard F – again.
My point remains I have said elsewhere on these threads – the politicians are in a panic, they can’t make any decisions and the ones they do are either wrong or u-turned.
Not a very good sign at all.
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