Meantime

Of course it was and I'm sure Dan or someone will be along shortly to provide a serious answer. In the meantime I just provided a little light hearted banter. This is known as the light side, don't take life so seriously.

Probably around 45 foot.

So basically all the things to do in Wroxham involve getting a big train, a little train, cycling, taking another boat, or walking to get out of Wroxham No one yet has mentioned the simple pleasure of walking around Norfolk Marine and working out just how many ways to lighten your wallet. For me the best bits of Wroxham are sitting outside The Kings Head or The Wroxham Hotel with a pint and watch the world go by, or the cheaper alternative, stand on the foot bridge or enjoy a beverage on board your boat. Don't forget if you moor in Norwich yacht station there is lots to do such as get a train to Wroxham

There is no disputing it's not been a good year this year, but has it been a bad year, or an average year? Just after Covid there was probably a couple of excellent years and yes it is quieter this year for all manner of reasons, and yes various Directors of boat hire firms may not be looking to replace their Porsche or 4x4 this year, but has it really been a bad year? Maybe this year was needed to force a correction to prices for next year. Some price hikes were explained away by additional Covid measures, but those same prices didn't go down once Covid restrictions eased. Instead they jumped on the latest bandwagon, the cost of living and hiked prices again. Maybe its time to re-evaluate pricing and accept for now that the post Covid boom has gone and time to accept average again.

I think the idea of "no go" areas has quite a bit of merit after all the rivers are for everyone after all. Perhaps the Lower Ant below Ludham Bridge should be a no go area for powered boats during the three rivers race, purely on the basis of safety you understand. Maybe the Bure from Wroxham Broad to Bridge Broad should be a no go area for powered boats on a Sunday to give Paddle boarders a chance to enjoy the area in safety. Perhaps the Thurne from Potter Bridge to Womack Dyke should be a no go area for all vessels one morning a week to allow the anglers to enjoy their use of the waterways in peace and quiet with no river traffic disturbing their quiet enjoyment of the waterway. But, what about our right to navigate I hear you shout! well the same is also true for ALL river users. Personally I think anyone on the water that makes other boaters have to think about their speed, slow down to lessen their wash is a good thing. If anything perhaps the stretch from Wroxham Broad to the bridge should be 3mph, rather than 4mph.

For a seemingly intelligent person, he can make some very stupid comments! The toll year runs from the 1st April. Most privateers toll their boat during March or early April, at that point it is way to soon to have known whether it was going to be a good Summer weather wise or not. The weather had very little to do with people not tolling their boat this year. On the other hand the single biggest thing that put people off was the extortionate toll increase. However, next year will be even worse no matter how big or small the toll increase is. How many who scraped together enough to go boating this year are going to be saying, not again, not going to risk another bad Summer like last year, lets save our pounds for somewhere we can guarantee the weather.

Look at the output curve for your 70ah alternator. It will only give 70 amps once it reaches a certain amount of revs. You'll struggle to reach maximum output at Broads speeds. If that is the issue you might be able to change the pulley for a smaller one to spin it faster, within the alternator limits off course. However with a smaller pulley you might need to go for a notched belt as these handle tighter radius better.

I keep feeling like I'm missing something in the various discussions about boat hire pricing and discounting. I hear the arguments for not offering last minute discounts, But, why are boat hire prices during the six weeks holiday higher than at other times in the first place. It's something called supply and demand. Demand is higher, the product is in short supply, so the prices are higher. So surely it makes sense when demand is lower than normal, leading to an over supply, for prices to be lowered. With less printed brochures and the ability to make quick changes on digital media, pricing can be adjusted relatively easily and quickly. The other day I was looking at flights to Porto, for the next two months there are about 15 different prices being offered depending on the day of the week I want to fly, availability of seats on the day I want to fly and time of day. The basic product is the same. The same plane flying between the same two airports. The price is purely driven by supply and demand. Maybe it would make sense for the hire yards to set a more sensible price for all the weeks, and then as some weeks become more fully booked to actually increase the price for the few remaining boats they have left. This would encourage those who want certainty and a particular boat to book earlier. Conversely that would leave room for yards to lower prices in weeks that are not booking well. Allowing those who are more flexible and prepared to take a last minute chance to potentially snap up a bargain. Whether it's a true bargain or not, sales and discounting are a day to day part of our daily life now. Maybe it's time for the industry to catch up.

There is now two hire boats, but still plenty of space. Never seen it so empty for the start of September.

There is one hire boat and one syndicate boat at Oulton Broad yacht station. Nothing outside the Wherry. Normally as soon as the kids are heading back to school the Grey pound comes out. Not looking good for this September.

I think the history of Thorpe Green has been done to death, however I will add a recent experience. Sunday August Bank Holiday weekend and decided to moor in Thorpe for the evening. We left Norwich around 4pm and cruised down river and slipped under the railway bridge and cruised along to the Green. There was every kind of small boat you can imagine, tenders from the other side, canoes, ribs and a few canoes from the pub and paddle company, but there was one spot up near where the day boats hire from, so we moored there. We were the only full size Broads boat moored along there and in all honesty we got the last spot at that time. After a while it thinned out a bit and we started to notice that the day boats were returning and mooring up behind us, then the operator would jump on board and the boat would disappear to somewhere in front of us. I didn't really give it much thought but it did feel slightly like we were in the way, yet looking out the side window we were right by the sign that said free 24hr mooring, so no problem. We all had showers and then left for a pint in The Rushcutters before dinner in the very excellent Merchants of Spice. As we left all the dayboats were double moored in front of us with two of the boats moored on The Rushcutters mooring. It felt like we had moored on the last bit of the day boat operation mooring, which probably explained the dropping off behind us and then moving the boats around us. Nothing had been said to us and if asked once the space behind had become available, we could have moved back. As far as I could tell we were on the free 24hr mooring. However when we arrived it was the only space available anyway. There used to be signs along the quay heading encouraging the tenders from the other side to moor in certain sections. This has been totally ignored for some considerable time now and was very evident on Sunday afternoon. The only other mooring space would have been at The Rushcutters, but as we were only having one and eating elsewhere I would have been loathe to use their mooring.

Perhaps its about time they introduced a mooring charge to help with keeping the staithe repaired. There'd be no excuse for not keeping it fully maintained then!

I can only agree with the above having made a couple of visits there recently. The first visit I was cruising solo and not being sure where the moorings were exactly and not wanting to enter a potentially tight space single handed I decided to moor at the BA public mooring at Cantley. I moored at the end the furthest away from The Reedcutters. If you take a short walk along the riverbank and then turn inland alongside the sewage works there is a path and lane that lead to the far end of Cantley station. I took the train to Brundall knowing that The White Heron is right next to the Brundall station. It was a 7 min walk from the boat to Cantley station and a return ticket was £4.40. Which made me realise given the ease of the journey it was probably better than paying £20 for the overnight mooring. The first visit was just for a few beers and more of a reccy in reality. Beer was good and being a warm day I sat outside along with quite a few others. My only criticism is that they have spread a shedload of pebbles amongst the outside tables which makes it tricky for walking amongst the tables. It's just like walking on a stony beach. I struggled not to spill my pint. I saw quite a few others struggling with more pints. The second visit was with friends and we moored at the moorings. The food was good, service was good and the beer good. The place was nearly full by 20:30, although I didn't check in the sports bar side of the pub. Once dinner was done it quietened down a little and we decided to move to a slightly quieter table further away from the bar as we wanted to play a new card game one of my friends had brought along. Engrossed in the game we realised at just gone 22:30 that we were the last ones in the pub. So we drank up and went to settle our not inconsiderable tab. We joked with the barmaid that we thought we'd better go as we were the last ones in. She said it wasn't a problem and we could have had another as she had another hour or so of cleaning glasses and clearing up to do. Was quite a refreshing change to my experience of Broads pubs of late. One of my gripes with the Broads pubs these days is that they have become restaurants and have a tendency to make you feel unwelcome beyond 21:30 - 22:00 and are looking for you to leave so they can close. Thursday week ago we were in the Wherry Oulton Broad and went to the bar to get a drink at 22:35 and they had already called last orders.

The Nelsons Head was very much open when the picture below was taken on the 21st July this year. The Lion was sadly closed when I drove past. If you get as far as Somerton, it is well worth the walk, or the bus as the road can be a bit dangerous, to Winterton and The Fishermans Return which is very good. Over in Hickling The Greyhound is still open and The Pleasureboat closed. Not sure about this year, but last year they had a garden bar during the Summer months. The garden of The Fishermans Return

The integrated access strategy is all very well, but, how much money has been spent so far, and will be spent, debating, reviewing and producing a nice white paper that achieves absolutely nothing. Now if they actually spent that money on leasing moorings, say for instance renewing the lease at Langley staithe, something that produces some tangible useable benefits, then it would get my vote.

As a final update to this thread it is perhaps worth noting that the applicant took the BA's decision to refuse planning permission to the Planning Inspectorate. They performed a site visit on the 25th May 2023 and reached a final decision in favour of the BA on the 20th July 2023, upholding the refusal of planning permission. Whatever people may think of the BA and its planning department, it would appear that the Governments Planning Inspectorate agreed with the BA on this occasion. Full details of the Planning Inspectorates decision can be found here

I believe the BA executive area goes all the way up to Bungay, but again the limit of navigation is Geldeston Lock. The BA's remit is to maintain the navigation as it was when The Broads Authority was formed.

Because the BA are the local planning authority for the Broads Authority executive area, which overlaps with many other local council and parish councils as well as East Suffolk, North Norfolk and Broadland District Council.

That's not strictly true. The BA is the sole planning authority for that property. It makes planning decisions based upon the national planning framework. It must consult with and take into consideration the opinions of various local authorities, parish council, in some cases county council, highways and other stakeholders. The parish council when consulted objected to the planning application, but the BA only has to consider that along with any other objections, recommendations and comments received from neighboring properties. The ultimate decision lies with the planning authority, which is the BA. It can over rule objections received on the basis it wouldn't be able to defend the decision based upon the planning framework and guidelines they have to work to.

All the more relevant when you consider the current applicant was also the one who applied for the holiday lets to be built back in 1997 and therefore can hardly claim not to know about any such restrictions applied to the property. There will be many sides to this. On the one hand there will be the people who will be upset because they enjoy popping along there and buying the products whilst on holiday and will consider it a quaint cottage industry. Then there will be the BA bashers who will claim they have better things to do. Well guess what, one of those better things is as the local planning authority. Then there maybe the local residents who have suddenly found their quiet residential holiday village area has become a lot busier with extra traffic and people queuing in the road to purchase the products. Then there is the consideration that a planning application has been made, considered and turned down. There is a process to appeal that, but to just ignore it and carry on trading anyway is not the correct way. If every applicant that had an application turned down, just went ahead anyway, what would be the point of a planning system. Finally there are two established retail areas already. The main village with convenience store and butchers and the stores at the staithe itself. These have planning permission to retail goods and should be protected from unauthorised traders. Would it not be possible for the bakery to continue baking, but to offer it's goods for sale through any of the already established retailers in Ludham.

But in 50 years of driving how many horns have you heard?

It used to be a lot more overgrown, but they have certainly done a lot of tree felling and clearing in that stretch. There is some tempting looking wild mooring spots on the other bank, but be aware that a lot of it is leased to a fishing club who don't take too kindly to anyone mooring there.

I think you will find it's the mooring I have highlighted on the following two images.

I don't know for sure, but I would think the mooring is counted as a whole. So whilst the end of Sutton 1 closest to the road might be more than 500 metres away from the end of Sutton 2 furthest away from the road, I don't think that matters. The distance between the two closest parts of Sutton 1 and Sutton 2 is less than 500 metres meaning you can not hop from one to the other on a daily basis.

Is it possible, yes, is it realistic, no due to cost. Solar panels are actually made up of a number of cells arranged in series to give the required output. A cell normally gives in the range of 0.46v to 0.6v, so typically 32 cells are arranged in series to give upwards of 15v. The size of the individual cell dictates the maximum amount of current the cell can produce. A typical 3 inch square cell will produce 1.7 amps. A 4 inch square panel will produce 3 amps. So for instance you could use 32 x 3 inch square cells to produce approx 15v at 1.7 amps. Which would be about approx 12 inches by 24 inches. If you used 64 cells you could end up with a panel twice the size at either 12 inches by 48 inches, or 24 inches by 24 inches and depending on how it was constructed it would either give 15v at 3.4 amps or 30v at 1.7 amps. Basically anything is possible when designing bespoke panels, but at a bespoke cost!! There is enough choice of off the shelf panels that you should be able to find something that will be close enough to the size you want to fill.