Marina For Sale, Yours For £11m

[pdj855]

Frankly, I don’t understand why Lakeland run marinas. I know a few people with boats at Tattenhall and the general feeling seems to be that they have absolutely no understanding of boats or the boating community. They’ve just decided to stop providing any boat repairs or maintenance service from November, laying off allegedly one of the best workshop teams on the canal system in the process. What use is a marina without any boat maintenance? It means that anyone with a boat there now has to call in outsiders to do the work. What’s more, they do this just before the winter season when most boaters are planning on laying up their boats and getting all those jobs done that need doing in the off season. This, coupled with the fact that the marina itself is so poorly maintained that the jetties have become a death trap, especially during winter. They are slippery and unstable and it’s only a matter of time before someone slips and falls and is seriously injured or worse. Couple that with grassed areas that are poorly if ever mowed and pathways that, on the rare occasions when the grass is mowed, become slippery with their own covering of uncleared grass clippings. Their entire focus seems to be on the restaurant side of the business. They are used to running caravan parks and see boats as floating caravans and don’t understand the differing requirements between the two. There are rumours floating around Tattenhall village now are that they are planning to expand the marina out to add a caravan park and village as well which will further reduce their interest in the boating side of the business. They would be best off buying a chain of restaurants and being done with that.

[Rob-M]

5 hours ago, pdj855 said:

Frankly, I don’t understand why Lakeland run marinas. I know a few people with boats at Tattenhall and the general feeling seems to be that they have absolutely no understanding of boats or the boating community. They’ve just decided to stop providing any boat repairs or maintenance service from November, laying off allegedly one of the best workshop teams on the canal system in the process. What use is a marina without any boat maintenance? It means that anyone with a boat there now has to call in outsiders to do the work. What’s more, they do this just before the winter season when most boaters are planning on laying up their boats and getting all those jobs done that need doing in the off season. This, coupled with the fact that the marina itself is so poorly maintained that the jetties have become a death trap, especially during winter. They are slippery and unstable and it’s only a matter of time before someone slips and falls and is seriously injured or worse. Couple that with grassed areas that are poorly if ever mowed and pathways that, on the rare occasions when the grass is mowed, become slippery with their own covering of uncleared grass clippings. Their entire focus seems to be on the restaurant side of the business. They are used to running caravan parks and see boats as floating caravans and don’t understand the differing requirements between the two. There are rumours floating around Tattenhall village now are that they are planning to expand the marina out to add a caravan park and village as well which will further reduce their interest in the boating side of the business. They would be best off buying a chain of restaurants and being done with that.

We've not been to Tattenhall for a few years but have moored in Lakeland's other marinas at Saul Junction and Great Haywood and I would say they are well maintained. The facilities are always clean and tidy, grass regularly mowed and jetties looked after including pressure washed to keep the clean.

The onsite workshop at Great Haywood is run independent of the marina. 

[MtB]

5 hours ago, pdj855 said:

Frankly, I don’t understand why Lakeland run marinas. I know a few people with boats at Tattenhall and the general feeling seems to be that they have absolutely no understanding of boats or the boating community. They’ve just decided to stop providing any boat repairs or maintenance service from November, laying off allegedly one of the best workshop teams on the canal system in the process. What use is a marina without any boat maintenance? It means that anyone with a boat there now has to call in outsiders to do the work. What’s more, they do this just before the winter season when most boaters are planning on laying up their boats and getting all those jobs done that need doing in the off season. This, coupled with the fact that the marina itself is so poorly maintained that the jetties have become a death trap, especially during winter. They are slippery and unstable and it’s only a matter of time before someone slips and falls and is seriously injured or worse. Couple that with grassed areas that are poorly if ever mowed and pathways that, on the rare occasions when the grass is mowed, become slippery with their own covering of uncleared grass clippings. Their entire focus seems to be on the restaurant side of the business. They are used to running caravan parks and see boats as floating caravans and don’t understand the differing requirements between the two. There are rumours floating around Tattenhall village now are that they are planning to expand the marina out to add a caravan park and village as well which will further reduce their interest in the boating side of the business. They would be best off buying a chain of restaurants and being done with that.

 

Why not ask if you can rent the workshop buildings from them, employ the redundant staff and run the workshop facility yourself? 

 

If if you don’t fancy this idea, it will probably give you an insight into why they don’t want to run it either