Mooring consultation report published

CANAL & River Trust has today (Friday) published its final report on the public consultation on visitor moorings in the South East.

There will be changes at just eight of the 22 sites considered. These include:

Relaxing restrictions in winter (November 1st to the day before Good Friday), keeping only those in obvious honeypot spots (such as outside the museum at Stoke Bruerne)—i.e. most visitor moorings will become 14 days moorings during winter.

At each of the eight visitor mooring sites there will be a limit to the number of days a boater can moor in any one calendar month. This limit varies from site to site, but will be clearly signposted and prominent in associated leaflets.
The report explains why the Trust stuck to its original formula for site return rules in the face of alternative suggestions.

Daily charge

It reports that although it only related to 22 out of 130 or so visitor mooring sites across the South East it has been a challenging, yet ultimately rewarding, few months as Jeff Whyatt, Senior Waterway Manager, explains:

Consistent complaints

"Over the last few years, one of the most consistent complaints made to me has been about the congestion at visitor moorings. The mooring rules haven't been reviewed in a long time and after a 40% increase in the last 10 years or so in boat numbers to 35,000, it felt like now was the right time to update the mooring rules at some the most popular sites across the south east.

"From the start it was perfectly clear that not all boaters agreed with our plans. The great thing was to see boaters with different ideas come around a table and discuss the issues and debate the plans for each site. A big thank you to all those who responded and especially to those who disagreed with us but were willing to give up their own time to help."

Free for specified period

Mooring remains free of charge for the period specified, but after this, a daily charge of £25 will apply

Hire boats are subject to the ‘per visit' stay limit (two days etc.) but not the cumulative ‘days per month' allowance. The report explains why.

Roving traders may be allowed more generous stay limits but the Trust's boating trade team will take more time to consider this and discuss with roving traders.

Increase monitoring

To better inform the Trust's decisions at the other 14 sites, where no changes are being made this year, it will increase monitoring and review the results at the end of the summer and revise plans accordingly. The Trust wants to carry out this review with the help of local boaters and the Navigation Advisory Group.

Jeff adds:

"The passion, knowledge and constructive help boaters have given has been fantastic and we're hopeful that these changes result in fairer sharing of the visitor moorings enabling more boaters to enjoy the wonderful canals of the south east."

Download the report from www.canalrivertrust.org.uk/ or call 03030 404040 for a paper copy.