Residential moorings in London - now up for auction

[Grace and Favour]

Do the moorings come with an electricity supply????

http://www.waterscape.com/media/documents/37

[Trix]

http://www.waterscape.com/media/documents/37

thought he was talking about roydon ????

[Lady Muck]

It seems a bit like moorings getting passed onto people who are mates and or have done favours. I understand if someeone has made a great contribution to the comunity they should get somewhere...

 

I'm not talking about BW moorings, I'm talking about private ones, if you are already on the waterways, if you know many boaters, then you get to hear about the moorings that never get advertised.

[alan_fincher]

Why at least is the bidding system not more open like an ebay style???

 

Might be worth getting up to date with facts before you have a proper rant!

 

The auction system switched over to an e-Bay like one round about mid-October of last year.

 

I think you are probably talking about the old "sealed bids" type tender system that preceded the current auctions, but you are nearly a year out of date.

 

Since then you can see other people's bids when placing your own.

[alan_fincher]

It's common place for BW to auction off only certain moorings at spots where there are several/more vacancies - you often see

 

'this is the first of x mooring spaces to be auctioned at this site' in the auction description.

 

I go with the market testing theory - seems the most logical.

I think the reason that BW tend to only auction one mooring at a site at a time is to avoid the bidding confusion that would arise if multiple ones were open at the same time.

 

There is no right way of doing it, but consider the situation where (say) two 55 foot moorings at the same site are put up at the same time.

 

If I bid on a mooring, and win, I either have to take it up, or pay a large forfeit penalty. I can't therefore easily bid on both, without risking winning both, but if I bid on only the one, I can end up not getting it, but having bid enough that I might have won the other instead.

 

I'm not sure I've expressed it too well, but hopefully you get my drift.

 

At least with the "one at a time" approach, I can carefully consider the situation each time, and I know more clearly where I stand.

 

At least BW has the honesty to say there are further vacancies due. Think about it - this may actually hold the price down, because I know if I pull out at (say) £2K this time around, that one person who is prepared to pay more will not be competing with me next time, and the next one might even go cheaper.

 

I don't think it has anything to do with "testing the water" for setting guide or reserve prices. "Guide" is simply the rate paid by existing moorers at the site who got their moorings in the pre-tender and pre-auction days. It is exactly the same number as is published annually as what those moorers would pay, and does not get inflated at the moment simply because people are prepared to pay more at auction.

 

All information about how the system works, and what "guide" and "reserve" mean are fully documented by BW, but for some reason people keep wanting to read something else into them, which is not actually the case, (or at least, not so far, anyway!).

 

To complete my comments....

 

1) I am not saying that at some future date BW will not inflate the price paid by moorers under old arrangements, if a site consistently goes above "guide" at auction. It is possible they may - but so far they have not.

 

2) I am not defending them saying that there are a set number of vacancies at a site, if the actual number is known to be far higher.

 

What is certainly true, though, is they often have no idea how many vacant slots do exist at a site. I have heard of constant evidence of moorings not being advertised because BW moorings admin don't know they are there. A mooring was vacated at a very popular local site recently. The moorers there "rearranged" themselves somewhat thereafter, and although they made the slot shorter, there is still clearly space for at least a 50 foot mooring. Moorers there seem to believe BW have lost track of that fact! (It became vacant in April, so there's a tidy few months of lost revenue..... )

[Duchess Omnium]

1) I am not saying that at some future date BW will not inflate the price paid by moorers under old arrangements, if a site consistently goes above "guide" at auction. It is possible they may - but so far they have not.

 

Actually I think that was quite specifically part of the reason for the auction process. It was decreed that BW must charge a "market rate" for moorings, only no one had a clue what the market rate was... That was the rationale for sealed bid system when the auctions first came in. Bidders were told that they should offer to pay "what the mooring was worth" to them, because BW was honestly trying to find out what they were worth... The plan was that once everyone was clear what moorings were worth in a local area, BW could raise the price that everyone would pay -- gradually, of course, but inexorably.

 

The problem was, it turned out to be more complicated than they thought, and I guess that is why they haven't made more progress. For instance, a 15 metre mooring near me went for over £2000. A 10 metre mooring in the same place got no bids at all.

 

So they couldn't do a simple price per metre calculation and it was back to the drawing board. I guess they can't afford the clever economists to work it out. But when they do, moorers under old arrangements in popular spots will definitely pay more. There might be places where they will pay less.

 

Meanwhile, I do think they are honestly trying to work out what these moorings are worth, which is what the government ordered them to do several years ago.