Dispute at Pillings

[Dangerous Dave]

 

Just remember what makes a marina desirable.

 

Location, location, location.

 

 

Correct ..When i first looked upon living on a boat in a marina i found near London was too expensive..Some £3500 (Herts) in the middle of the country (Leics) it was cheapist at £1400 as at 2007/8,getting towards Manchester it started rising sharply again.Hence why i chose PLM as i thought it was affordable..I even met the violent tempered Mr John Lillie (lol)to which i found him to be a person of integrity and purchased a 30 year lease at £28000 ..Little did i know it was to be become a public park and a centre of controversy ..But then that is history!!

Well for me at least!!

[Richard Fairhurst]

If I were the CRT financial controller my commercial attitude would be you pay your access fee on time or you’ll find yourself cut off within a week and have to pay an additional fee to get reinstated.

 

I don't think it's always that simple. Several years ago there was an episode when a Very Large Hire Company couldn't afford to renew its licences on time. BW handled it carefully, gave them a bit of leeway, and in time, the hire company paid what was owing. The said company continues to trade profitably today.

 

Had BW insisted on the money right here, right now, the Very Large Hire Company would almost certainly have collapsed. That would have been Watchdog-type stuff and would, I suspect, have caused a knock-on loss of confidence in the industry. Certainly other hire fleet proprietors who I spoke to at the time were very alarmed by the prospect of VLHC going under.

[Dangerous Dave]

OK, I'll bite..........Are you really suggesting any member on here Wants to see the moorers at Pillings Lock loose their home?

 

Exactly where in these 75 pages of posts have you come across anyone suggesting anything less than empathy & best wishes for the unfortunate people, who currently find themselves moored at Pillings Lock?

 

On a forum as large as this one, with so very many different members and their opinions; I believe after reading this thread you will find pretty much a unanimous agreement for the well being and concern of the uncertain future for those boaters who have paid money to PL so they can call Pillings Lock Marina their home. Whereby it be for residential or safe mooring for their leisure boats.

 

Just because you don't agree with the posts that suggest or question the unethical running practices in place; and that those people responsible should be held accountable, does not mean those same posts wish ill will on the moorers. There is only one person IMO, who should be held accountable and that is the person who has placed the moorers in this situation in the first place. The person making the decisions of how the business is run!

 

Don't forget to mention that Pillingsmoorer is a suspect member of the PLM "team as is the lady who he /she says "couldn't have put it better myself in such words" regarding the family scene and us speculating this situation.

The amount of bitter people is increasing due to the actions of its "team Leader!!

[Willber G]

Correct ..When i first looked upon living on a boat in a marina i found near London was too expensive..Some £3500 (Herts) in the middle of the country (Leics) it was cheapist at £1400 as at 2007/8,getting towards Manchester it started rising sharply again.Hence why i chose PLM as i thought it was affordable..I even met the violent tempered Mr John Lillie (lol)to which i found him to be a person of integrity and purchased a 30 year lease at £28000 ..Little did i know it was to be become a public park and a centre of controversy ..But then that is history!!

Well for me at least!!

Location, location, location? Sounds like your determining factor was price, price, price considering the wide range of sites you were interested in. Which is fair enough but doesn't support George's argument.

 

I don't think it's always that simple. Several years ago there was an episode when a Very Large Hire Company couldn't afford to renew its licences on time. BW handled it carefully, gave them a bit of leeway, and in time, the hire company paid what was owing. The said company continues to trade profitably today.

 

Had BW insisted on the money right here, right now, the Very Large Hire Company would almost certainly have collapsed. That would have been Watchdog-type stuff and would, I suspect, have caused a knock-on loss of confidence in the industry. Certainly other hire fleet proprietors who I spoke to at the time were very alarmed by the prospect of VLHC going under.

But giving leeway in this case (amounting to four years) has proved disastrous, which just goes to show that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, I suppose.

[Dangerous Dave]

Location, location, location? Sounds like your determining factor was price, price, price considering the wide range of sites you were interested in. Which is fair enough but doesn't support George's argument.

 

Fair point ..As i was green of the boating scene and at 2007/8 i was desperate for somewhere to live and didn't have the time or luxury to suss out a quality life.

I bought a £500 touring caravan with most of my essentials loaded inside including a German Shepherd dog,my Son's rabbit,and a tortoise that had been mine for some 45 years..(LOL)

Hence I bought the first nb i saw which turned out fine..PLM was just a mud site at the time ..This was in the time when it was advised to get a mooring first before buying a boat..Thanks to BW all that changed and at a later date , customers could have a upperhand in where they moored their boats.

 

Although things are a bit about turn now in the PLM area are they not!!

 

I did post an earlier account of how i found PLM ..Adjacent to a sewage treatment works and actually rat invested..The bridle path named Flesh Hovel Lane and the site being an ex quarry didn't deter me..

Soon after Mercia Marina came on the scene and oh boy how i wished i had become on the scene at a later date,but then i blamed my ex-girlfriend for most of that.

As had been said many times before on this thread PLM is/WAS a great place to be..Such a shame about its "team leader though!!

[Richard Fairhurst]

But giving leeway in this case (amounting to four years) has proved disastrous, which just goes to show that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, I suppose.

Indeed!

[mayalld]

I disagree with you completely. However, in all fairness, it is going to take a bankruptcy attorney to say which one of us is right.

 

The liquidator should have the authority to re-write contracts and to terminate contracts as s/he sees fit. If the liquidator does have this authority, then the liquidator can simply terminate the contract with PLM. PLM would still exist as a company, but it would no longer have a contract with QPM, or QPM's phoenix, to manage Pillings Lock Marina.

 

 

Contracts are indeed terminated (because the contracting entity no longer exists at the end of the liquidation). That bit is easy.

 

However, the liquidator cannot unilaterally vary the terms of the lease. The sticking point is that QMP holds a lease from QMH. The liquidator CANNOT compel QMH to vary that lease.

 

As the lease was drawn up between two members of a group, with the intention of ensuring that all money ended up in the holding company, it is of no value to a third party to acquire that lease.

 

The ONLY way that the liquidator can dispose of the lease will be to dispose of it back to a QMP2, wholly owned by QMH.

[Mike Todd]

Don't understand that. The leasehold berths would be included in the total number of berths in the marina. & charged at 9%

But that might just be the origin of the hole in their business plan if they had anticipated their wheeze as excluding the leaseholders from their NAA calculation.

[mayalld]

 

I think the car dodging of planning is more likely as putting planning in for a PRIVATE MARINA with access via a PUBLIC BRIDLE PATH,but actually turning the site into PUBLIC PARK has been the idea after the Steadmans came on the scene

 

You have mentioned the bridleway a few times, but I fear that this is a red herring.

 

The fact that it is a bridleway tells us only about what rights the general public have to use the path.

 

So, as it is a bridleway, the public have right of way on foot and on horseback (and possibly on a cycle, I would need to check). They do not have a right of way in a motor vehicle.

 

However, the absence of a public right of way for motor vehicles is not relevant to the existence of a private right of way. It seems near certain that QMH etc have a private right of way over the path, and that they can permit anybody they see fit to use the path for access to their property.

[carlt]

 

You have mentioned the bridleway a few times, but I fear that this is a red herring.

 

The fact that it is a bridleway tells us only about what rights the general public have to use the path.

 

So, as it is a bridleway, the public have right of way on foot and on horseback (and possibly on a cycle, I would need to check). They do not have a right of way in a motor vehicle.

 

However, the absence of a public right of way for motor vehicles is not relevant to the existence of a private right of way. It seems near certain that QMH etc have a private right of way over the path, and that they can permit anybody they see fit to use the path for access to their property.

You are absolutely right, including the cyclist's right to use a bridleway although the local horsey set blew a gasket when I proposed a series of cycle route guides throughout the county utilising the extensive bridle path network.

[Alan de Enfield]

 

So, as it is a bridleway, the public have right of way on foot and on horseback (and possibly on a cycle, I would need to check). They do not have a right of way in a motor vehicle.

 

 

If it has motorised vehicular access it would be a BOAT (Bridleway Open to All Traffic)

I should be easy to check as it will be noted on the relevant OS map.

[carlt]

If it has motorised vehicular access it would be a BOAT (Bridleway Open to All Traffic)

I should be easy to check as it will be noted on the relevant OS map.

The landowner is within his rights to drive along a bridle path and allow anybody else to do so to. Same applies to public footpaths.

[Willber G]

But that might just be the origin of the hole in their business plan if they had anticipated their wheeze as excluding the leaseholders from their NAA calculation.

I think you've missed some posts, the hole is bigger than that - they didn't cater for NAA payments in their business plan full stop.

[mayalld]

If it has motorised vehicular access it would be a BOAT (Bridleway Open to All Traffic)

I should be easy to check as it will be noted on the relevant OS map.

 

If there was a PUBLIC right of way, that would be the case.

 

However, it is entirely normal that a path/track/roadway should be a bridleway and not a BOAT, but still have private right of way for landowners and those that they permit to pass.

[Mike Todd]

I think you've missed some posts, the hole is bigger than that - they didn't cater for NAA payments in their business plan full stop.

You are correct - I replied before they arrived in my view!

[Detling]

No one has yet suggested that maybe the marina was designed to fail. If as in much of England planning consent for houses on green field sites was impossible, but getting a marina there was possible, It may have been a deliberate ploy to build a marina which fails and then the landowner is asking for residential planning for houses on a derelict marina and not a green field. Commonly (believed to be) done in the SE to get round the local objections and the strict adherence to the regional planning rules.

[carpet wallah]

 

Contracts are indeed terminated (because the contracting entity no longer exists at the end of the liquidation). That bit is easy.

 

However, the liquidator cannot unilaterally vary the terms of the lease. The sticking point is that QMP holds a lease from QMH. The liquidator CANNOT compel QMH to vary that lease.

 

As the lease was drawn up between two members of a group, with the intention of ensuring that all money ended up in the holding company, it is of no value to a third party to acquire that lease.

 

The ONLY way that the liquidator can dispose of the lease will be to dispose of it back to a QMP2, wholly owned by QMH.

 

Blimey! How many times!

QMH don't have the freehold -- QMP do! Therefore NO lease between these two.

 

There must be some kind of lease or agreement between Quorn Marina Properties and Pillings Lock Marina, if they are charging for the moorings.

[Alan de Enfield]

 

 

QMH don't have the freehold -- QMP do! Therefore NO lease between these two.

 

QMP & PLH are subsidiaries to QMH

 

Do you have any documentary evidence of the freehold ownership, as, if you are correct what does QMH as the holding company for both QMP and PLM "bring to the party" ?

[Paul G2]

No one has yet suggested that maybe the marina was designed to fail. If as in much of England planning consent for houses on green field sites was impossible, but getting a marina there was possible, It may have been a deliberate ploy to build a marina which fails and then the landowner is asking for residential planning for houses on a derelict marina and not a green field. Commonly (believed to be) done in the SE to get round the local objections and the strict adherence to the regional planning rules.

This was a sand quarry before it was a marina - just an ugly hole in the ground.

[adam1uk]

it was lunacy for BW to impose and the marina to accept a high fixed charge.

 

The NAA charge shouldn't have been a surprise -- it's the same for every new marina, and is well publicised. It's not as though PL was being treated differently, and it wasn't being sprung on them at a late stage in development either.

 

You remember that BW Marina Investment Guide that someone posted a link to about a hundred paged back? This one. Presumably this is the guide that Paul Lillie believes promised him 100 per cent occupancy.

 

Well, in a section headed The Investment Case, is a section about operating costs. And in that section is a bit about the access charge.

 

 

It's funny how people read what they want to read in such guides, and somehow manage to miss other bits.

[magnetman]

It has been suggested several times before in this thread that the original plan was for a housing estate

 

Seems more than likely to me

[Graham Davis]

If it has motorised vehicular access it would be a BOAT (Bridleway Open to All Traffic)

I should be easy to check as it will be noted on the relevant OS map.

 

I have checked!!

It is on the Definitive Map as a BRIDLEWAY, but residents and land owners of property along the lane have access. Whether that includes visitors to the marina depends on what was said in the Planning Permission for the Marina.

[carpet wallah]

 

 

There are three companies involved:

QUORN MARINA HOLDINGS LTD. QMH does not have any fixed assets, it owns all the share capital in the other two companies:-

 

QUORN MARINA PROPERTIES LTD. QMP has fixed assets of £2.57 million (The marina?) It also has long term borrowings of £2.75m and current liabilites of £1.91m. On paper, it is worth minus £2m approx.

This, therefore is the company that owns the marina and this is the company that is going into voluntary liquidation.

There is a legal charge over the freehold of the marina by Mr Steadman, the money man.

 

PILLINGS LOCK MARINA LTD. presumably runs the services on site and has the contracts with the moorers. One would assume it has some sort of lease from QMP.

 

All this is based on the last filed accounts. If there is any evidence that any of this is wrong, please put me right.

 

It is pointless, IMHO, putting together all sorts of proposals and scenarios about the future of the marina, without understanding the correct company structure.

 

 

 

QMP & PLH are subsidiaries to QMH

 

Do you have any documentary evidence of the freehold ownership, as, if you are correct what does QMH as the holding company for both QMP and PLM "bring to the party" ?

 

See my earlier post, quoted above your's. All gleaned from the last set of accounts of the 3 companies and all in the public arena. I don't have any knowledge of the various reasons for having holding companies, but I'm sure there must have been one.

 

As I see it now, QMP gets liquidated, with it's deficit of £2m+, Mr Steadman grabs the freehold under his legal charge and, if PLM has a proper cast iron lease, it can continue to run the marina (or pond) for the length of the lease. But what do I know?

 

I wish all the best to the moorers there all the best.

[OldGoat]

If it has motorised vehicular access it would be a BOAT (Bridleway Open to All Traffic)

I should be easy to check as it will be noted on the relevant OS map.

There were very few BOATS ever created and I think legislation a few years ago knocked that whole concept on the head.

[Dangerous Dave]

It has been suggested several times before in this thread that the original plan was for a housing estate

 

Seems more than likely to me

 

Not the original plan i'm sure

 

I have my speculation over this...Why would multi millionairres risk taking on a on a project of a marina with what has turned out to be managed by an inept MD .

The situation now takes on a rethink for them..

Remove themselves from directorship of this ailing concern ready to pounce on plan B..

Perhaps offering a carrot of PL by letting him have a swanky cafe on the waterfront surrounded by exclusive homes and floating hotels and such like..He does after all have 8% of a shareholding.

Leaseholders there perhaps are getting a good investment after all!

 

Thank you for the info on the bridle path situation..I suspect that the marina was given permission in way of the boater would be tenants and therefore in a way have property access.

Leaseholders certainly are!

They could invite who they like but i'm not so sure enticing public visitors to a commercial cafe or whatever.

Suppose the best way is to enquire at the Highways dept of Leicester County Council(Not great fans of Paul Liliee')