Vaughan

Of course he could, since he used to own and run the place. He is also an ex member of the BA Nav committee. "Taken to not posting anymore" actually means censored by moderation, as he was considered at the time as a "BA Basher" and discouraged from posting further on this forum. I can't speak for him of course, although he has kindly spoken of me as his "Old school buddy from Taverham" on the BRAG Facebook page. If he were now to post here again (I wish he would) he would no doubt tell us : "I told you so".

So do I have to finish my evening meal before getting thrown out at 8PM? I don't normally book a table for before 7.30. And what about a drink in the bar before lunch, if they close at 11AM? Doesn't sound like a pub, to me.

Now that, I most certainly DO agree with!

Not for me I am afraid. It just comes up with a window to log in, which I can't remove.

I can empathise with this from the boatyard point of view. The customers that I have known over the years are quite capable of working out for themselves what they might think is wrong with their holiday! They know when they are getting good value and that is what brings them back, year after year. I wonder what percentage of private boat owners on this forum started their love of the Broads on boating holidays? Very often as children, with their parents? "Coot Club" and all that! What they do not want to be told, by someone on the river bank, is that they are being fleeced. They may well have realised that for themselves but they certainly don't want some bystander to tell them so! Un - productive.

Thank you Paladin for your prompt reaction. I suggested several weeks ago that BRAG should consider expanding their coverage further than just Facebook and this seems a very good way of doing it. What a pity that this forum appears risk averse, when our pleasure and future in cruising the Broads that we love, is in such obvious danger. We should be shouting this from the rooftops!

Funny you should say that, Fred. After making my last post, I paid (truthfully) my first visit to the "other side" in probably 5 years and had a read of their discussion. I think I learned more in the last half hour than I have learned from this forum since BRAG was formed. I was able to read the letter that they sent to MPs, together with some of their replies. I also learned of a meeting in Norwich last week which was visited by a minister from DEFRA. They allow links to the facebook group and have a thread for discussions of the group and its page. I would not call that "campaigning" for a moment but it is certainly much more informative than "this side"! Rather makes me wonder what our admin are so cautious about. Maybe I should look in on their discussions more often in future, to keep in better touch?

Some-one whose opinion I would very much like to see is @Paladin. Haven't heard from him for a while.

How about a congestion charge on the Ant? With a camera gantry at Ludham Bridge, like the Dartford Crossing? Or a pollution charge, because your classic boat with its BMC or Perkins diesel doesn't have enough "neutrality" to suit the New Green Agenda? Everything will be possible, in this mercenary new world that we are entering. I predict a recession on the Broads and it will probably be a big one, if this madness is not stopped now.

In the case of Ranworth, the lease of the Malsters' Quay was held by Blakes ever since the late 40s and no charge was ever made. I also notice this stuff about "parishioners". This will be because part of the quay is also the parish staithe. Which part, has become obscure by the sound of it!

And so will I. I would not have shared the text of my letter on the forum if this proposal had been dropped, since I always have the hope (surely we all should?) that that the BA are acting in the best interests of Broadland. The River Commissioners most certainly did. Now? I am not so sure.

This is the text of a letter that I sent by e-mail to Bill Dickson on 21st January, copy to three members of the nav. committee who are boatyard directors : For the attention of the chairman, the Broads Authority. Subject : An overnight charge on Authority maintained public moorings. Dear Sir, I am writing to voice my objection to the Authority's intention to make a charge to boats on their moorings. My objection has two separate reasons: 1/. As a Broads boat owner and toll payer I cannot see why I must now have to pay an overnight charge on moorings which are leased and maintained by the Authority from the funds from river tolls. I see this as an un-acceptable double taxation. This, coming on top of a 13% increase in tolls which is well above present or predicted inflation rates. In the past we have been asked to accept a high increase for exceptional and "one-off" reasons. This year no such reason has been offered or explained. 2/. As an ex Broads boatyard owner with a life-time in the boating tourism industry, I am most seriously concerned that such a move will simply discourage hirers of holiday boats, who are already feeling the effects of the current recession and will therefore be another "nail in the coffin" of tourism, upon which the Broads area so vitally depends. I am most fearful that the Norfolk Broads are "losing their appeal" at this time, to both private boat owners and hirers. I know from my own experience that the north rivers are just as crowded now as they ever were in the "bad old days" of the 60s. There are nowhere near enough public moorings, since the demise of all the small boatyard businesses. Local landowners have caught on to how easy it is to charge for moorings on land which used to be simply a river bank. Pubs are making the same mistake by actually charging their own customers to moor on their premises. Please do not let the Authority make the same drastic mistake of expecting tourists on holiday to fork out "ten Quid" to moor on a B.A. public mooring. I believe it is called killing the goose, that laid the golden eggs. Yours sincerely, etc. I know that yours sincerely is not the correct form when using "Dear Sir" but the word faithfully, just didn't seem to fit this context. Suffice to say I have had no reply.

But it's not free, is it? You have already paid for it in your river toll. And so have the hire boats.

A very, very sad day for the future. I had hoped all along that common sense would prevail before they made this big mistake. I have seen quite a few recessions on the Broads in my time and one can usually point to the reasons for them. This is the thin end of the wedge.

That says it all for me! What this app obviously knows nothing about is TIDES.

My first job on leaving school was with the Norvic Shoe Co on St George's Plain. The building is still there, as shops, offices and flats. Across the road was the KILTIE children's shoe factory, main competitor of Startrite shoes. Norvic made ladies shoes in Norwich and mens shoes in a big factory in Northampton, where they also had their design offices. Northampton and other towns around (such as Barker of Earls Barton) were very well known but Norvic opened their new Heathside factory in the 60's on Vulcan Rd, near the Airport. At the time it was the biggest and most modern shoe factory in Europe, turning out 62,000 pairs of shoes per week. In the late 60's an entrepreneur named Charlie Clore opened factories in Europe, mass producing cheap plastic shoes and the shoe trade in England died out almost completely.

Yes, there is. Look up Brundall Local History Group, in the section : River Yare. I remember mooring there on many occasions.

Interesting that the yellow line is exactly where the public moorings used to be, at the end of a separate dyke, in the 50s and 60s before Brooms' expansion swallowed it up as part of their marina. I think it is pretty obviously where the public staithe was as well, right beside the road over the railway. I don't know of any other public staithe in Brundall? I believe there is a photo of this old dyke in the Brundall archive.

Seriously, I am pleased that they were actually discussing a roundabout on the Station Rd crossroads with the bypass. This must be considered essential if they are going to close the bridge to road traffic.

Thanks a lot, I was able to read it, including the comments, where I was pleased to see that some-one's cat has come home safely . . . .

Did any members attend this meeting? Is there any news of it?

Maybe not this year but will it put them off coming back next year? I think yes.

I have reopened it in the very context of this thread. The historic persecution of certain "classes" of boat owner by the BA is, in my opinion, the root cause of what others are complaining about in this discussion. It is no good at all whinging on this forum about "squatters" on the 24 hour moorings and the "leccy" posts if the BA are going to condemn them as an underclass and not allow them to make better arrangements. For Goodness' sake, living on a boat is nothing new on the Broads! I was raised on a boat, on Harts Island, from the age of 6 months and my parents lived there for 41 years. Please don't tell me, what is right or wrong, about living on a Broads boat.

Certainly neither do I! But the basin was dug with planning permission for moorings and has never been used for anything else ever since. It later became part of a covenant, involving the permission for the Old Hall Close development on the old Wards boatyard and that covenant said - guess what?? That the land could not be used for anything else except moorings. There's your "section 52 agreement".

Oh, by the way . . . . It was proved at the time that all those mooring in Jenners Basin had current river tolls up to date and a current BSS on their boats and were paying rent up to date with the landowner. They thus had the legal right to be where they were. Most of them had composting type toilets on their boats and the site was equipped with drinking water from an artesian well. Diesel or pumpouts were available from Hearts Cruisers, just a few hundred yards downstream. The only "bone of contention" was the BA's insistence that the planning permission, on a basin dug out for moorings and nothing else, had "become dis-used". That land is still sitting there, abandoned and useless, since it is still subject to a legal covenant for the mooring of boats and nothing else.