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dom
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Posts posted by dom
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36 minutes ago, grendel said:
I see we are having a go at the unlicensed and unregistered boat owners- do we have any proof that this boat is unregistered and untolled before we start jumping to conclusions,
I did say "If this is another unregistered and abandoned vessel" in my initial post.
I don't really understand why anyone would not criticise them. Tolls are a product of expenditure divided by tollpayers. Anyone not paying the toll is directly increasingly legitimate tollpayer's outgoings.
There is ultimately no excuse. DWP will pay housing related expenses for liveaboards to anyone genuinely in need.
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BBC have just posted an article about steps to relocate the station:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-norfolk-68008265
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The unlicensed home issue already has too great an influence on how they handle things. BA have taken one individual to court within the last year for non-payment of tolls, but incurred substantial costs in doing so which they'll never recover. The trouble is, they're doomed to failure with a lot of approaches due to the Human Rights Act.
It's a growing issue and has a cost impact to legitimate boat owners (including law abiding liveaboards). They really need to send out a signal that unlicensed liveaboards won't be tolerated any more than non-payment of council tax would be on land.
I think they need to get brave and either sieze the boat (as they're lawfully entitled to do), place it on land and provide power, water and a portaloo at nominal cost (to address human rights issues), or to remove and impound it and liaise with local councils to provide emergency housing. The counter arguement to the former is that you risk ending up with some sort of homeless encampment but, as things stand, it's fast becoming the case in some places anyway, in locations which should be some of the Broad's main beauty spots. A bit of a cluster of liveaboards tucked away in a corner of a marina somewhere isn't too much of an issue, but it's now overtaking public staithes and blocking power points, etc.
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They need to utilise the legislation they've been given properly. Sections 17-20 of the Broads Authority Act give them extensive powers to enter, inspect, remove, impound, sell or destroy anything unsafe.
Obviously, these are often unlicensed vessels. If something appears unsafe, phone the last recorded owner. If they still own it, enforce the toll requirement. That will require a BSS and invariably deal with any safety issues routinely. It also has the added benefit of bringing in more revenue, mitigating the need for toll increases.
If there's no owner, stick a 28 day notice on it. If nothing happens, move it to Postwick, either by river or road. Store it on the brownfield land they own there. Every 6 months or so, have an auction to sell off anything unclaimed. It could actually prove to be a fairly profitable exercise, which could either benefit toll payers, or underwrite the cost of anything unsellable which needs costly disposal.
I think in general, the BA could do with someone within their organisation with decent private sector commercial experience to tackle issues like this - and a lot of the other criticisms raised by BRAG and elsewhere. Having spent all my life in the private sector, I see things going on within BA and think how the hell do people keep their jobs? Why is the "Head of safety management" or the "Operations directorate" not getting to grips with these things before they incur costs?
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There was a £2k charge in BA's accounts recently to raise a sunken vessel at Sutton Staithe.
If this is another unregistered and abandoned vessel, dealing with tide issues at GY it's got to be another £3-4k going on next year's toll fees.
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1 hour ago, guywilkes said:
John Loynes is often referred to as "the grandfather" of the Wroxham boat building and subsequent hire trade. He was was originally a carpenter in Elm Hill, Norwich and he built his first rowing boat in 1878.
I think it's a very close race between Loynes and Herbert Bunn for the Wroxham title. Loynes is actually recorded as being in Belaugh in 1885-6, but the location is "near the bridge", so could be up towards the viaduct moorings. Herbert's a boatbuilder in 1881, but I've not managed to tie down the location where he worked as yet.
I suspect Herbert could well be an apprentice to another boatbuilder, which might change things entirely!
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I'd always been of the view that commercial boating (ie. trading wherries) went back hundreds of years, but holiday boating and racing started around the turn of the 20th century. That may well be due to the fact that the oldest racing yachts seem to date from around this time(?) and possibly the impression gained from reading Ransome's books too many times!
Since posting the question, I've got hold a copy of "Norfolk Broads and Rivers, or The Waterways, Lagoons and Decoys of East Anglia" by G.Christopher Davies in 1884. It's a fantastic read (with surprisingly little archaic language) and will no doubt prompt another question or two.
What's very evident from it is that the industry (and racing) seem to go back much further than we all think. By 1880, Wroxham week seems to be an extremely popular and busy event - including things like wherry quanting matches. There are suggestions that recreational boating had been going on for 100+ years and commercial letting for at least several decades.
There's some really interesting detail on boats - like lateen rigs having been very popular, but rapidly dying out by the 1880s. What it hasn't clarified so far is the scale and nature of boatbuilding. I wonder to what degree boats were imported from elsewhere back then. There's the odd mention of racing between "foreign" and local designs, but no particular detail. I'm on a bit of a search for other similar publications to try and find out more.
Bit of an excerpt, picked as I suspect @Vaughan might like it:
We....enter a reach of the old river, which is crossed by two railway bridges. This is Thorpe reach, and it curves past an ancient mansion, many smaller houses with beautiful gardens, and the pretty village of Thorpe. It is a reach which is not excelled for variety of attraction and warmth of colour by any reach on the Thames. The inn at the lower end of it, kept by Hart, is a place of popular resort on summer evenings. Close as this is to the city, the fishing is at times good. In the winter of 1879 there was a large aggregation of pike in this reach, either from the fact that high tides had driven the fish up, or because the reach had been dydled out, and the fish sought the clear hard bottom. Over 500 pike were caught in a very short time 50 from one spot a few yards square and recently very good catches have been made of pike running up to 18 Ib. in weight, and bream up to 5 Ib. This, it should be noted, is within two miles of the city.
Just to clarify, "dydled" is hand dredging with something akin to a landing net with finer mesh. It seems that large sections were dredged by hand in those days and spoil deposited directly on adjoining banks. I remember drag line dredging above Wroxham bridge in the 70s where they did the same. I find it laughable that horticulture is crying out for a peat replacement, but BA stuggle to dispose of dredging spoil which seems like a good option, possibly mixed with composted green domestic waste.
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3 hours ago, bucket said:
You may well be correct dom, but there are thousands of sub post masters in the UK who make a living
Are they though? The one in my village is teetering on the brink of closure. The one in a neighbouring village has closed. Seemingly the only way they can survive is combining postal services with a wide range of other goods. Even Hoveton has suffered this fate. The Post Office used to be on the precinct corner opposite Hotel Wroxham. It's had to move into the supermarket to survive. Wroxham post office is long, long gone, as are Coltishall, Scottow, Tunstead, etc.
I'd concur with your views about employment, etc though. I'd ardently oppose it being converted into another holiday let or permanent housing. Someone needs to find an inventive use. Hair and beauty seems to be thriving now post-pandemic. I can't think of anything along those lines in Horning and there's plenty of wealthy potential customers? The shop next door used to be a butchers (another school mate did an apprenticeship there) and was most recently a flight-sim business, which I think has failed. Not sure if it's still vacant, but the two premises together could make a nice barber and hairdresser, or hairdresser and nail bar? My village is probably comparable size, but sustains a hairdresser, barber and nail bar. The barber drives a Porsche, so they're obviously not facing bankruptcy any time soon!
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My Beko fridge, which I bought in 2005 is still going strong (touch wood!).
My White Knight tumble dryer bought at the same time recenty failed aged about 17 years, so I replaced it with a Beko. It's an absolutely brilliant machine, despite being one of the cheapest on the market.
I also bought a new washing machine recently. It's a Hoover which I chose as it had control from a mobile app. The app has never worked, the program control is intermittent and I suspect the drum bearings aren't going to last much longer. It's barely out of warranty.
I actually wonder if "budget" brands work harder to ensure their products last, as they've not got an established reputation to rely upon.
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I lived on the bottom of Mill Hill in the early 80s. One of my friend's parents ran the post office, but disposed of it as, even back then, it wasn't very viable commercially (they took Tidings on instead).
Unfortunately, it's an unavoidable fact that we use post offices less and less and it's an increasingly small number of older people who rely upon it. You've also got Ludham and Hoveton post offices in close proximity either side. Counters don't need big glass barriers these days so, if there is a significant need for the local population, it could probably be accommodated with a small counter in Tidings.
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Was looking around for images of the area, as I wanted to remind myself what David Wall's used to look like. Found the second image down on this page:
https://sprowstonhistory.weebly.com/norwich-road-wroxham.html
I'd actually forgotten that it used to have petrol pumps at one time.
Can also see the houseboats on Bridge Broad. One of them was lived in by a very dodgy character who spent half his time in prison and was rumoured to be the person to go to if you wanted to buy illicit firearms!
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16 minutes ago, Mouldy said:
was horrified to be told that I’d need to replace the whole system, from the manifold back - the reason was that the original exhaust was manufactured in one piece and fitted before the rear axle was at the factory, so it was impossible just to replace the rear section. Bearing in mind that it was a Ford, it wasn’t cheap either. I seem to recall that I was relieved of around £130 for the exhaust, which was a fair chunk of money in the early 90’s (to me).
I can't remember exactly which model it was, but one of Audi's first Quattro models fitted with a catalytic converter had similar issues. The exhaust itself was staggeringly expensive due to the new catalyst and you had to drop half the drive train to change it. One of my customers at the time had one and I seem to recall the total bill after labour was somewhere in the region of £9k or so - which probably equated to 2/3rds of the cost of a Golf GTi at the time. I suspect a very lucrative market in aftermarket alternatives quickly developed!
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22 minutes ago, Vaughan said:
I think it used to be called "planned obscellence".
Also known as a "Sony timer" in some circles.
Supposedly, it's an urban legend, but I used to sell a lot of Sony electronic products and they had a remarkable ability to fail shortly after the warranty ran out.
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33 minutes ago, stumpy said:
Many years ago I was told by an old boatyard owner that anyone who sets out to convert battery power to heat is on a road to nowhere.
That was probably very sound advice at the time, but phones, PCs and electric cars really are driving some pretty rapid change with battery and charging technology, which is breaking down a lot of the old hurdles.
Newer smart alternators, coupled to a modern DC/DC charger and lithium or similar batteries can increase power output several times over compared to 10 years ago. If you can find space for a few 100 watts of solar, even better still. If you look at a basin full of canal boats now, a significant percentage have solar. If you can get 500w of solar on board, 6 hours of sunlight and you can run an oven for an hour, without having to pay anything for fuel. Add a solar dump to a calorifier element and you can heat water once your batteries are topped up too. The capital investment needed is also dropping all the time.
I suspect your yard owner's advice will probably hold true for heating for some time to come though!
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Phone numbers changed to 6 digits in the early 80s. David Wall was opposite Broads Tours until 1990, when they built the current premises on Littlewood Lane industrial estate. The garage used to be where the current Art&Glass place is and I'm sure they always had an array of vintage cars in the showroom which they still use now. I don't think there were any buildings on the left hand side of the site in those days - a lad I knew from school worked there (and still does) and I think his car was always parked on that side.
I checked the London Gazette and the notice to strike off is there in 1982, but no sign of an address unfortunately.
I'm fairly sure there used to be a high end antiques store on Grange Walk - probably in or around the old dairy in front of Windboats. I suspect it might be related to that.
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I've been doing a bit of research into historic boatbuilders again this evening. Whilst doing so, I got to wondering who the oldest recreational boatbuilder was on the Broads.
Can anyone shed any light on who this might have been? There was a similar thread on boatbuilders on here 15 odd years ago and loads of yards mentioned going well back into the 1800s, but I suspect most, if not all were probably building commercial vessels.
The earliest examples I can see are Ernest Collins (Maidie) and Herbert Bunn in 1904 (slightly spookily, Herbert was actually buried on this day 1911, which made my hair stand on end a bit!).
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First thought I had was a very old view of Horning Reach and the "big stick" is the chimney for Horning steam mill.
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23 minutes ago, Mouldy said:
Personally, I’d like to see a reduction in the building and development around where I now live and around several other Norfolk towns until such time as the infrastructure is updated to accommodate the increase in local population.
I'd like to see it reduced full stop. That's one of the reasons the BA really frustrates me. They're supposedly this great green defender, only interested in conservation, yet they've allowed my home town of Wroxham to be completely over-developed.
The two examples which really stick in my throat are the old Bridge restaurant site (across to the old Broads Tours wet shed) and the former Jack Powles site up on the bend by Staitheway Road.
The former was open land with trees. It's now been destroyed and turned over to housing ruining the view from the Kings Head area. The bridge is also a defining feature of the village, but now has a much taller restauant looming over it. If it's a notional Natural Park, why allow houses to displace nature and reduce the appearance of the area?
In the latter case, the brownfield JP site has been turned over to yet more housing. If permission for housing had been refused, sooner or later, it would have been re-used for commercial purposes. That wouldn't necessarily mean boating, but would mean jobs for young people in the area. If it sits there for a long time unused, then find grant or similar funding to convert it to a public marina, which would provide an amenity and allow the current generation of huge hireboats to moor with ease, bringing more money into the local economy. Anything but more housing which, once established is pretty much there for all eternity.
If you compare the area now, to when the BA were established, it's unrecongisable and has lost almost all of its character and history. Allowing that to happen whilst proclaming themselves a National Park seems completely hypocritical to me.
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There's some interesting change on the horizon with battery technology, which might have a bearing on all of this.
First generation Sodium Ion batteries are just starting to appear. They have some massive advantages, including being far more stable than lithium, so the fire issue becomes much less common - and sodium is relatively cheap and easy to source, without the need for huge, environmentally damaging mines.
No doubt 1st generation products will have lots of issues, but after a generation or two (probably 1-2 years), there's a very real chance we'll have access to cheap, safe batteries with comparable capacity to lithium. Once that becomes the case, it'll be more practical to opt for electrical cooking by choice. It may also pave the way for legislative change. New domestic gas boilers are already attracting surcharges. If decent alternative technology exists, it's not unreasonable to drive out gas from boating and other leisure uses.
It's interesting from a convenience perspective but, as Mouldy points out, completely meaningless until Greta and co start to have a go at China, rather than our tiny carbon emissions and already quite responsible policies.
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Local plan rule DM33 stops planning permission being issued for basins or marinas unless a certain number of public spaces are provided. For developments of 30+ moorings, 15% of the total have to be given over "at nil cost to the Broads Authority" as short stay visitor moorings. If there are no pump-out or water facilities in the vicinity, they also have to be provided.
Obviously, you don't have to be a huge cynic to see that the planning rule isn't as good as first appears. BA can claim to be creating new spaces, but there's nothing to stop the site owner making excessive mooring charges, as has happened in at least one other location. Hopefully HPC are public spirited and either offer free/cheap mooring, or good facilities for visitors such as water, power, etc at a sensible rate.
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1 minute ago, Mouldy said:
Oooh! That hurt. As an incoming suburban retiree, I resent that generalisation. I keep my boat on The Broads, spend quite a lot of my money on maintenance at a Broadland marina, spend money at Broadland businesses when onboard, whether in shops or pubs. Since moving here, we’ve spent multiple thousands of pounds with local businesses refurbishing our home.
But are you trying to change things? Have you bought a house and now expect to influence planning to reduce industry or tourism in your locality? Are you pushing the NP agenda to help further those goals? That's the bit which I was really referring to in the context of this topic.
6 minutes ago, Mouldy said:I remain extremely grateful that I will spend the remainder of my life in a county in which I feel so very comfortable and am proud to call my home.
One of the reasons I'm particularly vocal about it is that I was, to a degree, driven out by the onset of the decline of the boating industry and lack of prospects as a young person in Broadland (and that was as an academic high achiever). Having worked long and hard over several decades, I now want to move back to the area, but the job market is far from healthy and the cost of accommodation is disproportionaly expensive. I'd love to be in the same position but sadly the cost of living in the area I still call home is currently preventing me buying somewhere to retire to. I'd happily live on a boat, but the BA's stance on this effectively renders it impossible to do as a hard working, law abiding person these days.
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15 minutes ago, floydraser said:
I think it's there somewhere.
I think this is one of the reasons why I don't particularly like the way that Facebook is being used as the primary vehicle for the group. You have to go digging about to find what their purpose or achievements are. You can bet a lot of the group members have never done anything like this and are just blindly clicking follow for a bit of gossip and excitement. The danger then is, you get an apparently large group of supporters but, when you come to lean on them, they're either completely unengaged or, worse still, on the opposing side.
I desperately want to see a group succeed in getting the boating community's voice better heard, but will happily bet £50 that BRAG won't oust JP during the course of this year. If I lose, I'll be the happiest I've ever been to settle a debt.
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11 minutes ago, floydraser said:
While all you old boys should be listened to for the benefit of past expeiences, the future of the Broads should be in the hands of those who live there and those of working age who have a future there.
I think this is a key problem area. Increasingly, the Broads is suffering "Burnham Market Syndrome". Large numbers of incoming surburban retirees driving up house prices, marginalising working class people from the leisure and similar industries, then complaining about traffic, noise, etc from holidaymakers disturbing their bird watching or paddleboarding. They then join parish councils and use either affluence or commercial experience to influence planning decisions, which all feeds back to the BA, shaping future policy.
It's evident that BA are now choosing to completely ignore or override the nav committee's input. As such, I think the status quo is that the former group are winning and the holiday and boating industry is on the ropes. I think it needs much more input from local government, but I find it worrying that the whole toll fees, multiple MP letter seems to have lost momentum without seemingly achieving much. I wonder what, if anything, is happening in the way of follow up.
28 minutes ago, floydraser said:Edit: BRAG do not discuss the Nation Park issue as they say it would be a distraction. One thing at a time, remove JP first.
I want to support BRAG. I'm on the side of the boating community, have worked in a yard and have deeper connections to the history of the industry. I just find the group a bit ineffectual though.
On any given day, there'll be someone posting irrelevant, irrational, or just plain nonsense content to the group (all now seen by Duncan Baker who's recently joined). Before Christmas, you had a yard owner proposing paying last year's toll as a protest mechanism, which, if adopted by the majority, would have caused a massive issue for BA, possibly one JP might have chosen not to fight. That all seems to have got lost though and the group is currently full of ranting about dredging for flood management, which isn't generally a BA issue.
If, as you say, the objective is to oust JP, then that ought to be clear and the sole focus of proceedings. There are some fairly obvious ways in which you could make his position far less comfortable.
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Don't know about facilities, but 8 public moorings appear to have been included to satisfy planning rules.
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Removal Of Sunken Vessel
in Broads Chat
Posted
They used a 3rd party contractor to recover an abandoned vessel at Sutton Staithe recently. Not sure if they have the resources to lift a boat anyway, but I'd suspect they'd be too risk averse to try lifting something in Yarmouth's tidal waters.