Ideas on allocating moorings

[sueb]

No, no hidden agendas but people keep criticising the auctions and I wondered if these people had a viable alternative. It does seem that people have moved onto the canals and are now trying to change the rules to suit themselves, sometimes to the detriment of other canal users.

[carlt]

It does seem that people have moved onto the canals and are now trying to change the rules to suit themselves, sometimes to the detriment of other canal users.

Isn't that a bit rich coming from someone who moved onto the canals and became a prominent figure in an organisation that professes to have the influence to change the rules?

[Jerra]

Could somebody please explain to me why it needs a system any more complicated than "this is the price, you pay it, you get the mooring". Just like selling anything else.

[Guest]

Could somebody please explain to me why it needs a system any more complicated than "this is the price, you pay it, you get the mooring". Just like selling anything else.

It's how that price is set that seems to be the issue...

[alan_fincher]

No, no hidden agendas but people keep criticising the auctions and I wondered if these people had a viable alternative. It does seem that people have moved onto the canals and are now trying to change the rules to suit themselves, sometimes to the detriment of other canal users.

So are you in favour of the auctions process then, Sue? - I'm not sure I understand the point you are making.

 

Wasn't the dreaming up of the tender system (initially) and the auction system (susequently) precisely a case off BW "trying to change the rules to suit themselves, sometimes to the detriment of other canal users"?

 

Would a return to a more equitable system really disadvantage anybody, (even CRT, who are now stuck with a system that leaves a high perentage of moorings permanently un-let, because they are not prepared to compromise on silly reserve prices).

 

If the auctions, (and allegedly selling at "true market rate"), are in fact a good idea, please explain to me why at the end of your three year contact you simply get placed on a standard rolling contract that has nothing to do with the price you have paid for three years, and which just reverts to the standard "list price" for he site. Bonkers surely?

[Trix]

 

Tonque in cheek, maybe, but if you arereally talking about £350 a month infuel to get to work, (so £4,200 a year), even a commercial marina berth migh in many areas be a cheaper option?

I was commuting a 180 mile round trip and it cost £341 to be exact on a motorcycle from Devizes to London , I went into the local marina to ask about prices and was quoted £7000 per year ( i can supply the web site if you want to look) so I will keep moving unless the rules change , many do, shall we say bend the rules to suit and i understand why , i do not , i accepted when i chose my lifestyle that i would have to put in a bit of work to keep within the guidelines , but I think a change to reflect the modern lifestyle of boaters may be good . A way forward to offer moorings at reasonable cost and open to all needs to found any ideas are better than none.

[Jerra]

It's how that price is set that seems to be the issue...

 

Surely that would then develop to what people are prepared to pay. When I was involved with shops you set your price on what you needed to make ends meet and what you felt your customers would pay. Gradually you learned to "get the price right".

 

Why wouldn't this happen with moorings. If they set the price too high the mooring either wouldn't sell or would take a long time - like over priced houses do.

[alan_fincher]

Could somebody please explain to me why it needs a system any more complicated than "this is the price, you pay it, you get the mooring". Just like selling anything else.

There is little problem at sites where demand is relatively low.

 

However at many sites there are many people who would love to get a place there, in the unlikely event one becomes available.

 

So do you just post it on a web-site, and the person who manages to hit "enter" first after completing the application form just gets it?

 

Or do you, as in the past, try to maintain some kind of waiting list for the locations where demand will always exceed supply.

 

The current arrangements just give it to the person prepared to make the highest bid - no doubt Thatcher would have approved immensely, but it seems somehow odd that what is now a charitable trust allocates moorings in this way, whereas just about any other commercial operator will operate a fixed price, (and presumably quite often a waiting list?).

[Jerra]

Under those circumstances Alan a waiting list would appear to be the answer,

 

If there were any doubt about the honesty some form of periodic publication would surely ensure honesty. May be problems with data protection. However that could possibly be covered by giving each person a unique reference number and only the rank order of the reference numbers being published. Individuals could then make sure nobody was jumping ahead of them.

[BEngo]

Under those circumstances Alan a waiting list would appear to be the answer,

 

If there were any doubt about the honesty some form of periodic publication would surely ensure honesty. May be problems with data protection. However that could possibly be covered by giving each person a unique reference number and only the rank order of the reference numbers being published. Individuals could then make sure nobody was jumping ahead of them.

But moorings are not all the same length and the applicants don't all want the same length either. So if you want, say, a 60ft mooring and a 50ft comes up someone with a 50ft boat might jump ahead of you - legitimately. If a 70 ft mooring comes up and their is no 70ft applicant should it go to the next size down, to two 35ft applicants or what?

 

I'm no lover of the auction system, because as it is it has just too many weaknesses which have all been detailed earlier in this thread but the BW mooring waiting lists were a joke, depending more on who you knew, or your ability to simply occupy a mooring as soon as it became vacant than on any rational system.

 

If we were able to devise a central open waiting list system with transparent pricing and fixed rules for allocation then it might be an acceptable alternative to the current mess. Any one for a trip to Ibiza on my Gloucester Old Spot?

 

N

[matty40s]

It still doesn't hide the fact that the auction system drip feeds vacant moorings instead of opening all it's vacant moorings up - therefore the CaRT notion of finding true market value is invalid and indeed a fruitless search.

[Guest]

Surely that would then develop to what people are prepared to pay. When I was involved with shops you set your price on what you needed to make ends meet and what you felt your customers would pay. Gradually you learned to "get the price right".

 

Why wouldn't this happen with moorings. If they set the price too high the mooring either wouldn't sell or would take a long time - like over priced houses do.

 

In theory that is what the auction system sort of does - the problem seems to be if it doesn't let then CRT don't appear to reduce the starting and reserve price to a level that somebody is prepared to kick the auction off from.

[Tuscan]

I believe the whole subject of mooring availability and pricing (including the relationship between CRT and private marinas and landowners) versus demand needs looking at. This includes long term , visitor and winter. I would be happy to join in with an initiative to do so but it needs the buy in of CRT to do so. As Alan says there is no sign of CRT wanting to move away from the current auction process or for that matter create more Visitor Moorings.

[luctor et emergo]

I must say that I wholehartedly agree with those who maintain that living on the canal should be discouraged, because that is not what the canal was meant for. It is not a linear housing estate. It is a system of commercial waterways, dug to connect centres of industry with their markets and sea ports.

 

Ahh.. Hang on.. I mean.. Err

 

You can't have it both ways. Either all pleasure boating stops, and we return to the intended use of the canal (yes please btw), or we accept that situations change, including the leisure use of the canal. Unless we find a solution to 'legitimise' the liveaboards who can't/ won't move large distances, the end result will hurt all. Exept the hire industry, who will end up with a linear holiday park... But surley that can not be an agenda?

[Chris Pink]

I would have thought some kind of return to a waiting list was not impossible, but to be fair, it would somehow have to be open to scrutiny to see that underhand tactics were not allowing people to queue jump - something there seems to be little doubt happened in the past. I'm guessing having the names of "waiters" visible in the public domain would be judged to be breaching data privacy issues, though.

?

 

So in this looking glass CART world what you are saying is that because they were incapable of running a waiting list without corruption ( and I know this for a fact ) then we have imposed an unfair system which is more difficult to corrupt. I say more difficult because I know people who were given moorings without having to go through the auction process.

 

Is it so far from the bounds of possibility that a waiting list could be run without such corruption?

 

And what is wrong with being on a dozen waiting lists? Only one will come up first.

 

 

. Exept the hire industry, who will end up with a linear holiday park... But surley that can not be an agenda?

Bless.

 

for that matter create more Visitor Moorings.

This contradicts the observations of members on the 48 hour mooring thread.

 

Incidentally I know of dozens of empty moorings on the Western K and A. Said to be an area of shortage. This mis-management makes a complete mockery of anything else CART may wish to impose.

[Higgs]

The value of anything, marketable, is between zero and what someone with money could pay and desirability.. Under auction conditions, the vendor needs to set a reserve price. Given that the cost of most things go up, the reserve here is not subject to what might be percieved as a market force, but assessed; unless marinas started slashing prices and we have a price war.

 

Providing the majority of moorings are taken, full accupation is not all important, it's desirable. The marina I'm in is successful and thriving, but not fully occupied. If the owner of the marina was to start dropping its prices to fill all moorings, it would make the majority discontented, and they would start asking for similar discounts. It would start to drive prices down. Some empty moorings will be acceptable.

 

Someone has got to set the price of a mooring. It will not be, on the whole, what the boater thinks is better than leaving a mooring vacant. If demand were to outstrip supply this, then, could add more value to the mooring and increase the price. It's like the jobs market; for the employer, unemployment keeps wages down, only in this case, it suits to keep wages low. Some unemployment will be acceptable, for business. Full employment will drive wages up.

 

I prefer set prices and increases expected due to inflation, and waiting lists.

 

IMO.

[Trix]

I just had a look for moorings within the area im in at the moment, 0 residential, so I expanded the search , nearest one Leicester(thats a long way away ) , maybe that is why I was quoted £7000 by a marina , but that marina still has many empty berths . So even if I wanted a mooring from CRT i could not get one , not that I could use within the rules at least . Yet to me there is so much unpopulated canal surely the answer is more moorings , CRT get more revenue , boaters don't need to flout the rules , these boats are kept off the VM's everyone is happy , except someone will be along in a second to say they do not agree lol.

[alan_fincher]

So in this looking glass CART world what you are saying is that because they were incapable of running a waiting list without corruption ( and I know this for a fact ) then we have imposed an unfair system which is more difficult to corrupt. I say more difficult because I know people who were given moorings without having to go through the auction process.

 

Is it so far from the bounds of possibility that a waiting list could be run without such corruption?

 

And what is wrong with being on a dozen waiting lists? Only one will come up first.

Yes, I have no doubt that at least some of the old process was corrupt.

 

And where not corrupt, at least mismanaged. As Bengo says, occupancy of a newly vacated mooring was often probably your best option of getting it, even if others were theoretically on some waiting list ahead of you.

 

I have heard it suggested before that the existing process sometimes gets bypassed, and you seem to have seen evidence of that, although personally I have not. Sometimes I would claim bypassing it might actually be legitimate. For example the mooring I won by auction for "Sickle" is nothing like the depth it was published as, making life quite difficult on occasions, and that was before the bank started falling in wholesale, in actually quite a dangerous way. I don't actually think it would be inappropriate for CRT to offer me an alternative at "list" price, bypassing any auction, because basically they have failed to provide what they advertised, and the honourable thing might be to offer something better and safer.

 

I agree that being on (say) a dozen waiting lists might be manageable. However I would suggest if you were allowed to be on (say) 50, it would be very hard to prove transparency in the process, particularly when a mooring got allocated to someone about 30 places down the list, when a large number of those who had registered some interest actually didn't take it up when offered. Presumably it would take a while for CRT to work their way down a long list of people who eventually declined, and the mooring could well be quite a long while before taken up, if the were to make a reasonable attempt to contact everybody more than just the once. Would people accept "we phoned you, but got no reply", as a reason for not getting offered, for example. Not everybody has email, by any account and someone living aboard may not have a reliable enough postal address.

 

However, whatever any of us think about this, from my recent dealings with CRT, you need to be able to find at least one person with infuence that you can start to work on to try and bring about change. In the case of moorings auctions I have never found a likely supporter within CRT, and without someone we could convince of our cause, I believe it will be a big challenge.

[Jerra]

But moorings are not all the same length and the applicants don't all want the same length either. So if you want, say, a 60ft mooring and a 50ft comes up someone with a 50ft boat might jump ahead of you - legitimately. If a 70 ft mooring comes up and their is no 70ft applicant should it go to the next size down, to two 35ft applicants or what?

Solving that doesn't seem to me to be too difficult. CRT keep a few lists covering the range of lengths they have. You go on the list for the length you want. With regard to two 30 footers going on a 70 foot mooring that would be up to CRT if they had no 70 foot boats waiting their choice do they keep it vacant or split it.

 

I recognise 2 points in this. First it is CRT's organisation and ultimately it is up to them as to how they decide to organise things and second boaters are able to advise but not dictate to CRT.

 

Separate lists would also help CRT to be aware of which lengths of mooring there was most demand for. So rather than taking the attitude that's a 70 foot space and nobody wants it it can stand empty they would know they have a list of people to offer the 2 35 foot spaces to.

 

Exept the hire industry, who will end up with a linear holiday park... But surley that can not be an agenda?

 

Hang on is hire boating not commercial traffic? Just what the canals were made for!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

OK that is tongue firmly in cheek and a bit of devils advocate as well.

[carlt]

First it is CRT's organisation and ultimately it is up to them as to how they decide to organise things and second boaters are able to advise but not dictate to CRT.

Nothing like a bit of cap-doffing subservience to smooth the way.

[Lady Muck]

For example the mooring I won by auction for "Sickle" is nothing like the depth it was published as, making life quite difficult on occasions, and that was before the bank started falling in wholesale, in actually quite a dangerous way.

When they let the mooring next to me, the water was only about 2 feet deep - they let it to a bloke that owns a Tjalk that draws 5 1/2 feet! I have to moor diagonally to the bankside because they won't dredge here, they say that now they've dug him a hole to float in (yes that's what they had to do), they can't dredge my berth as the piling will fall away.

 

Is it so far from the bounds of possibility that a waiting list could be run without such corruption?

I very much doubt, it, it's a scarce resource and people who are desperate for a mooring will be creative, it's human nature. Perhaps when I first got a boat I didn't notice any skullduggery but there is more 'fiddling' going on than ever before. I don't think things will ever be fair, well not as long as there not being moorings in the places where people want them and this won't change because of things such as local planning - CRT would love more resi moorings in Lee Valley, because that's where everyone wants to live, but LVRP says no, no way, not ever, it's part of their constitution - we have seen them demolish land based properties because they were used innappropriately.

[Mike Todd]

I just had a look for moorings within the area im in at the moment, 0 residential, so I expanded the search , nearest one Leicester(thats a long way away ) , maybe that is why I was quoted £7000 by a marina , but that marina still has many empty berths . So even if I wanted a mooring from CRT i could not get one , not that I could use within the rules at least . Yet to me there is so much unpopulated canal surely the answer is more moorings , CRT get more revenue , boaters don't need to flout the rules , these boats are kept off the VM's everyone is happy , except someone will be along in a second to say they do not agree lol.

The number of residential spaces in a marina is also subject to planning regulations. Some marina operators would like to offer more but are not permitted to do so, even if they have many empty spaces. Planning is generally a good idea but it can have repercussions.

[Lady Muck]

Yep, it's the easiest thing in the world saying, 'oooh yes, lets have more moorings,' but getting past planning is another thing altogether. One of the Yahoo groups posts up the planning decisions which affect the canals in our area and nine times out of ten residential moorings are turned down.

[Trix]

The number of residential spaces in a marina is also subject to planning regulations. Some marina operators would like to offer more but are not permitted to do so, even if they have many empty spaces. Planning is generally a good idea but it can have repercussions.

They have empty residential berths , I can have one tomorrow but I can't afford £7000 so I have to keep cruising .

[sueb]

There may be room for more linear moorings but some of us that cruise would hate to see more. They are also unnecessary when there are empty marina moorings. I tend to agree with an auction system but not necessarily the system we have at the moment.