a boater

yes - the only good thing about this is the security of tenure. but - there are apparently going to be conditions about reasonable behaviour. so you could still get kicked off. the funny thing is, like some other posters say, if we pay up promptly and mind out own business, we aren't going to get kicked out anyways, even without official security of tenure. we haven't actually had any official documentation on this - just an informal q+a sheet. so i don't know for sure about what might happen if circumstances change. from what we've been told, you'd just have to sell your boat with the resi mooring if you had to move, and you name the price (for boat + what's left of the license to moor). there's no link i'm afraid, and we don't have proper documentation yet. and there's nothing about opting out in the info they have given us... the thing is though - if you had £35k+ cash, you *could* afford to buy a flat or a house. in fact it would involve less upfront cash to buy a flat! it makes no sense that it'll be more expesnive to live on the marina than to buy property. plus about £4k mooring fees per year... i dont think £7k/year is a good deal, particularly as it's upfront. nope, i dont think it is!

we do pay council tax, get post etc. i don't actually know what residential permission is and i can't say for sure. i assume it's just permission from BW - if so, I *think* they do, but i've never checked. and the 'dont moor there' option brings up the further problem of 'where can i moor'? a 19 year one. they only have their lease on the marina for that long.

Willowtree sub-let (if that's the right term) from BW and I believe it's all legally above-board, so to speak. So I assume the answer is "yes" if that is required to do things correctly.

I would like to see what other boaters have to say about a new 'license' to moor at Willowtree Marina. I'll keep it as brief as poss and give you the summary of the so-called 'better deal for moorers': -residents (10+ boats) will have to buy a license to moor at Willowtree from next year. the costs are... -£35,000 for 5 years -£45,000 for 10 years -£55,000 for 15 years -£65,000 for 20 years -£70,000 for 24 years -For your money, you get security on your mooring for that number of years. You can also sell it on if you sell your boat with the mooring. So for example if you do the cheapest option, £35k, and you want to sell after 2 years, you can add whatever you want on to how much your boat is worth to cover the remaining 3 years. -That's all you get that you don't get with the current deal (which is where you just pay mooring fees). -You still have to pay mooring fees - e.g. £4k/year although depends on boat size. -e.g. if you pay £35k for 5 years, plus £4k each year, it's £55k for 5 years or £11k per year - but most of it upfront. -When you sell your boat in the marina with the mooring, Willowtree will automatically add the £70k price tag for 24 years. So a £30k boat will actually be sold for £100k. And said boat will have probably turned into a rust bucket long before the 24 years are up. -Pied a terre moorers have something similar but I don't know the details. Has anyone else heard of such a scheme anywhere else? Is it even (dare I utter this word...) legal? Some details on the marina: it's on the Grand Union, it's a 20 min bus ride to the train/tube station, takes over an hour to get to Central London, is in zone 5 for london transport.http://www.willowtree-marina.co.uk/ Obviously I have many thoughts on this, but again to summarise things: -Who could possibly have a spare £35-70k to pay upfront for (basically) sweet FA? -If anyone did, surely they would have the good sense to not spend it on sweet FA? -And don't forget, current residents have paid a premium on their boats already, when they bought them at well over their stand-alone market value (at least £10k more - some examples I'd say £30k more). So current residents will be the only ones to pay not just once but twice. So... what can we do to stop this craziness (aside from all try and sell our boats at once and get no uptake)? And where can I live if it all goes to hell?