Burgh Castle Moorings

[JohnK]

Is it right that you couldn’t be charged more per unit for electricity but in theory you could be charged say £50 to buy a card to use that electric that you then top up at the going rate?

[vanessan]

3 hours ago, Bound2Please said:

 

If i wanted electric kettles microwaves etc etc I would book or buy a cottage, I certainly wouldnt expect to have my getaways subsidised buy those that dont want a boat to be just a floating extension of todays home life.

It seems that many of today’s hirers want all those items you mention and many private boaters too. It’s a case of moving with the times as has been mentioned before, if the hire companies don’t keep up they will lose business. 

Nobody is being forced to use electric posts, nobody is being charged to use them if they don’t. People have a choice of how they want to enjoy their time on the water, with all mod cons or back to basic boating. 

[JohnK]

It seems that many of today’s hirers want all those items you mention and many private boaters too. It’s a case of moving with the times as has been mentioned before, if the hire companies don’t keep up they will lose business. 
Nobody is being forced to use electric posts, nobody is being charged to use them if they don’t. People have a choice of how they want to enjoy their time on the water, with all mod cons or back to basic boating. 

I’m not sure about nobody paying for the facility if they don’t use the posts (don’t tolls fund the installation?).
But I agree with the rest of your post 100%
I imagine there was similar outrage when boats with engines started appearing

[Bound2Please]

4 minutes ago, vanessan said:

if the hire companies don’t keep up they will lose business. 

Would they ????? im not so sure on that

[Bound2Please]

2 minutes ago, JohnK said:

I’m not sure about nobody paying for the facility if they don’t use the posts (don’t tolls fund the installation?).

Yes they do

[vanessan]

5 minutes ago, Bound2Please said:

Yes they do

Can we be quite sure of that? The original intention of the posts was to charge electric boats, mostly day boats I believe. Also to encourage more people to think about greener type boating. It makes me inclined to think the original cost may have come from elsewhere. Be nice to find out, if I can find time I will do so. Even if the costs do come from tolls, there are many private boaters who use the posts. They are there for use even if you don’t want to use them. (That was a general ‘you’ Charlie, not aimed at you specifically.)

[Meantime]

8 minutes ago, JohnK said:

Is it right that you couldn’t be charged more per unit for electricity but in theory you could be charged say £50 to buy a card to use that electric that you then top up at the going rate?

Put very simply that is incorrect. There are some very complex rules around what charges are allowed and what charges are not. For instance marinas may charge a deposit for a meter lead which is fully refundable once you have finished using their service and give the meter lead back. The same could be true for a card such as you suggest.

It is also possible to add on a service charge which covers the cost of inspection and maintenance of equipment used to supply the electric, which must also be at cost. In a marina with only 2 or 3 people using the post for the year this is relatively easy to work out and justify. Where it becomes a minefield is somewhere like a camp site with over night pitches where people just hook up for a few days at a time. This is similar to what we see on The Broads. The OFGEN rules in those cases do allow for the operator to take an accurate estimate of electricity used over the year, normally based on previous years experience, add on the cost of maintenance and inspection etc, then divide that cost by an estimate of the number of people that will use the service over the course of a year. So a campsite might know they book an average of 20 pitches with electric per night for an average of 165 nights per year for instance. They would then use these estimates to either come up with a unit cost for the electric, or a fixed nightly cost. The important thing is that they must be able to back up their calculations to prove they are trying to recover their allowed service charges and cost of electric without trying to profit.

I believe the BA use the model of charging the electric at cost with any service charge, inspection etc coming out of the toll account. Trying to do a similar calculation as you would do for a campsite must be a whole lot harder with such a distributed network of posts as the ones on The Broads and the margin for error huge. I'm guessing the units of electric used over the whole network is generally going up year on year, is very weather dependant, and also dependant on the people who want to use the electric actually being able to moor near a post. All making it very hard to use previous years figures to accurately predict a fixed price cost which includes all the allowable expenses without over charging.

[grendel]

19 minutes ago, JohnK said:

Is it right that you couldn’t be charged more per unit for electricity but in theory you could be charged say £50 to buy a card to use that electric that you then top up at the going rate?

I believe Ofgem rules dont allow that either- its regulated the same as campsite electricity posts and other electricity reselling

 https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/ofgem-publications/74486/11782-resaleupdateoct05pdf

 

[Meantime]

3 minutes ago, vanessan said:

Can we be quite sure of that? The original intention of the posts was to charge electric boats, mostly day boats I believe. Also to encourage more people to think about greener type boating. It makes me inclined to think the original cost may have come from elsewhere. Be nice to find out, if I can find time I will do so. Even if the costs do come from tolls, there are many private boaters who use the posts. They are there for use even if you don’t want to use them. (That was a general ‘you’ Charlie, not aimed at you specifically.)

I believe the installation of the initial posts was funded from a grant. Leader+ springs to mind, but I may be incorrect. It was to promote green boating. The later ones have come from the toll account. 

[Guest]

Having see these moorings tonight I IMHO think tgw piling is in pretty good shape n yes its low tide so I can see all of it really , electric post is black bagged and BA no mooring signs on the quay heading , I can see people ignoring them to be honest , as for the fisherman's where I'm currently moored its pretty difficult to get off I had to go from the cabin roof n top of my canopy is 7 foot from the water n thats virtually the land height but hey there's. No point in getting off the pub is shut using the,age old reason of recruitment problems , anyone solo will find huge problems mooring here , good job I walked team dog before getting here as I know he can jump but 4' is a big ask .

On another note I hope the boat moored on good child's fuel point intend moving in the morning as I need fuel   still I do a good wake up call so no worry's  

[Regulo]

Set Team Pigeon on them.

[JohnK]

Ricardo to the pub.
Pidgeon to fix the moorings
Dog to fix my ski boat engine.
Sorted.

[Guest]

33 minutes ago, JohnK said:

Ricardo to the pub.
Pidgeon to fix the moorings
Dog to fix my ski boat engine.
Sorted.

Team dogs seen plenty of mantainance on my BMC I recon he could take the head off on his own now 

[JohnK]

Team dogs seen plenty of mantainance on my BMC I recon he could take the head off on his own now 

Haha.
He might need the pigeon to tell him which head to take off

[Guest]

41 minutes ago, Regulo said:

Set Team Pigeon on them.

He'd defiantly be up for that