What Would You Pay Extra Tolls For?

[grendel]

59 minutes ago, Paul said:

I'm showing my age here, I remember VAT at 8%. One of the first things that Margaret Thatcher's government did in 1979 was to increase it to 15%

 

VAT was introduced in 1973 at 10%

in 1974 it was reduced to 8% - but a higher rate of 12.5% was added for petrol and luxury goods the higher rate was doubled to 25% between nov 1974 and april 1976 - reverting to 12.5%

in 1979, it was increased to 15% with the higher rate abolished

in 1991 it was raised to 17.5%

in 1994 the zero rate on domestic fuel and power was changed from 0% to 8% 

in 1997 the domestic fuel and power rate was reduced to 5%

in 2008 it briefly dropped to 15% returning to 17.5% in 2010

 in 2011 it was raised to 20%

 

I'm showing my age as i can remember when it was first introduced (and added to the price of sweets!!!!!)

[Vaughan]

This has become a fascinating discussion (and I am not joking) but we ought to get back to the original question pretty quick, before we get "modded"!

Would you pay more, for your use of the Broads?

Hire boats always used to pay 3 times the toll, because they were using the navigation more than the private boats. As there were 3000 of them, that meant a healthy income, which was going to the Commissioners, to be spent directly on the navigation. Private motor boats, in those days, were not all that many, and were only used for one week's holiday and perhaps a couple of weekends, so they paid less, in proportion.

The counter argument to this was that the hire boat is going out every week with a different party of average six people, who are being introduced new to the Broads and are spending their holiday "purse" in the local tourist businesses. The hire boatyards were also providing the infrastructure, of which we have spoken earlier.

So what about private boats now? Are they using the navigation more than they used to? On this forum, it certainly sounds like it.

Now though, there is much less toll income from many less hire boats and we all know, that income is not now going directly to the navigation as it used to, before the days of the BA. It is being swallowed up among all the various costs of running a QUANGO.

And yet the need to maintain the navigation is just the same as it ever was.

So should private boats now be prepared to pay more, for the navigation that they now enjoy, in greater numbers than before? Perhaps yes, but perhaps not until they can be better convinced that their money will be spent wisely. 

 

[unclemike]

why would I want to pay more, if the B A chased non payers properly there would be more in the pot.

2 examples;-

southern belle  6h  wasn't tolled last year isn't again this year
mity mouse doesnt have a reg number ergo no toll

 

both are moored in the basin at oulton broad yacht station

[Maxwellian]

Excellent read and posters well behaved. Thanks.

[Paul]

6 hours ago, grendel said:

this post contradicts itself, in one breath you blame the damage to the infrastucture on the explosion of private boats, but then go on to say they are rarely used.

many apologies Grendel, I missed this earlier. I did not intend that it would contradict. It is the very fact that you have such a large volume of boats tied up for long periods which damages the infrastructure, or at least the infrastructure as we know it. A hire boat lives on it's mooring, then twenty, maybe thirty weeks a year it goes out full of holiday makers spending their "holiday purse" as someone excellently described it. Meanwhile it's mooring is vacant, available for anyone else who wants to use it. A privately owned boat may have to pay a charge, or may nor depending on the boatyards policy, but the mooring is there.

A privately owned boat sits on it's mooring for however long, maybe the owner uses it twice a year, maybe every weekend, most likely somewhere in between. It doesn't really matter, whether that boat is at home or not it's mooring is not available. If I paid for a private mooring I would not expect to find someone else using it. 

In a way, a hire boat only ever needs one mooring, the one it uses that day / night. A private boat needs two, the one it lives on and the one it's visiting. 

Perhaps private boat owners should get together and form an equivalent of the HBF, allowing owners to use each others moorings whilst vacant. 

[Bound2Please]

12 minutes ago, Paul said:

If I paid for a private mooring

So I take it then that you dont pay a toll ?????????????????????????????

[JennyMorgan]

19 minutes ago, Paul said:

Perhaps private boat owners should get together and form an equivalent of the HBF, allowing owners to use each others moorings whilst vacant. 

Yes, yes, yes!

[dnks34]

A private mooring in this discussion is completely irrelevant as its paid for privately,  

Not from the Toll......

I think if Paul was actually a Toll payer he might see things a little bit differently. 

 

[Bound2Please]

32 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

Yes, yes, yes!

not sure boat yards insurance would allow that to happen

[WherryNice]

25 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

Yes, yes, yes!

An excellent idea! Yard owners might take some convincing though?

[vanessan]

44 minutes ago, Paul said:

Perhaps private boat owners should get together and form an equivalent of the HBF, allowing owners to use each others moorings whilst vacant

I believe this has been suggested many times but various reasons put forward for it not being viable ie against marina/boatyard terms and conditions or the berth holder having to return unexpectedly. 

Thank you Paul for taking the time to put forward your explanations as requested. Much of what you have said is very true and is probably very worthy of a separate debate. 

4 hours ago, Vaughan said:

So should private boats now be prepared to pay more, for the navigation that they now enjoy, in greater numbers than before? Perhaps yes, but perhaps not until they can be better convinced that their money will be spent wisely.

Didn’t the 2016 tolls review start to redress the balance? I am beginning to wonder if maybe Paul is trying to get us all in the frame of mind to readily accept large toll increases and share private moorings in order to avoid new ones being required. Maybe he is a BA stooge......................?? 

[vanessan]

 

JennyMorgan

Posted 23 minutes ago

   43 minutes ago,  Paul said: 

Perhaps private boat owners should get together and form an equivalent of the HBF, allowing owners to use each others moorings whilst vacant. 

Yes, yes, yes!

                          .........................

Does this mean we can moor at the bottom of your garden? Reciprocal agreement of course. 

[JennyMorgan]

17 minutes ago, vanessan said:

 

JennyMorgan

Posted 23 minutes ago

   43 minutes ago,  Paul said: 

Perhaps private boat owners should get together and form an equivalent of the HBF, allowing owners to use each others moorings whilst vacant. 

Yes, yes, yes!

                          .........................

Does this mean we can moor at the bottom of your garden? Reciprocal agreement of course. 

It has been known to happen!

[ExSurveyor]

Just now, JennyMorgan said:

It has been known to happen!

Peter,

Can you make sure it is properly dredged and shore power is laid on,  please. 

[dnks34]

Even if there were some sort of arrangement for privateers to share moorings it wouldnt make any difference to the Toll. 

This notion that a hire boat doesnt require 2 moorings is also not technically correct.  It may be possible for a hire boat to make use of another hire boats home mooring but a private boat may not necessarily be welcome to use it.  I also suspect certain yards may have more boats than they have moorings.  

I get the feeling this is a bit of a dig at private owners from a hirers point of view, why else would it matter how little or often a private boat is used, if its Tolled and on a privately paid mooring it matters not.

[Betty1]

Better and more moorings

Sent from the Norfolk Broads Network mobile app

[KaptinKev]

2 hours ago, Paul said:

 A hire boat lives on it's mooring, then twenty, maybe thirty weeks a year it goes out full of holiday makers spending their "holiday purse" as someone excellently described it. Meanwhile it's mooring is vacant, available for anyone else who wants to use it. A privately owned boat may have to pay a charge, or may nor depending on the boatyards policy, but the mooring is there.

A privately owned boat sits on it's mooring for however long, maybe the owner uses it twice a year, maybe every weekend, most likely somewhere in between. It doesn't really matter, whether that boat is at home or not it's mooring is not available. If I paid for a private mooring I would not expect to find someone else using it. 

In a way, a hire boat only ever needs one mooring, the one it uses that day / night. A private boat needs two, the one it lives on and the one it's visiting. 

Perhaps private boat owners should get together and form an equivalent of the HBF, allowing owners to use each others moorings whilst vacant. 

You do seem to come across as a "Freelander" of the broads!

[quo vadis]

Don't Landrover make them

[TheQ]

7 hours ago, quo vadis said:

Don't Landrover make them

No that model was dropped in 2014....

[vanessan]

9 hours ago, psychicsurveyor said:

Peter,

Can you make sure it is properly dredged and shore power is laid on,  please. 

And water too please. 

[marshman]

I would be very surprised if Southern Belle does not pay a toll - like all passenger carrying boats, she needs a special licence for that purpose! The operators would be a little silly to carry passengers and not be tolled as it is pretty easy to check, given that there are few passenger carrying boats around!

Registration numbers equally do not indicate a toll paid - a boat may have a number allocated but for some reason, is not showing it.

[Guest]

12 hours ago, Paul said:

many apologies Grendel, I missed this earlier. I did not intend that it would contradict. It is the very fact that you have such a large volume of boats tied up for long periods which damages the infrastructure, or at least the infrastructure as we know it. A hire boat lives on it's mooring, then twenty, maybe thirty weeks a year it goes out full of holiday makers spending their "holiday purse" as someone excellently described it. Meanwhile it's mooring is vacant, available for anyone else who wants to use it. A privately owned boat may have to pay a charge, or may nor depending on the boatyards policy, but the mooring is there.

A privately owned boat sits on it's mooring for however long, maybe the owner uses it twice a year, maybe every weekend, most likely somewhere in between. It doesn't really matter, whether that boat is at home or not it's mooring is not available. If I paid for a private mooring I would not expect to find someone else using it. 

In a way, a hire boat only ever needs one mooring, the one it uses that day / night. A private boat needs two, the one it lives on and the one it's visiting. 

Perhaps private boat owners should get together and form an equivalent of the HBF, allowing owners to use each others moorings whilst vacant. 

I do hope this thread is not heading in the direction of:

Private boats should only moor in private berths vacated by other "travelling" private boats, leaving the BA moorings (mostly paid for these days by private boats as there are more of them) exclusively for hire boats. 

[Malanka]

Forgive me for being impertinent however there is an assumption in the original premise of the statement about private moorings and private boats which is simply not the case. 

There are no hirers who pay as much into the local economy as someone who rents a mooring, services and upgrades their boat reasonably regularly, and then occasionally spends eye watering sums for restoration or repair, or in fact to buy a boat in the first place. That money goes somehwere! After all it doesn't evaporate. All this private spending is very likely, mostly (an assumption pls use discretion) money which is brought in from outside the local area and then spent in the local environment/economy providing jobs and income for many people. In my particular case foreign money from a completely different country and I am not alone either, there are quite a few non uk resident owners..

There used to be many more hire boats and so many more people employed in the hiring industry with many more boat yard moorings but that era has gone, it's dead and buried. It died because folks lost money and some didn't close up shop early enough and lost their everything as well.

We should accept that hire yards are service providers, the service they provide is the ability to visit the lovely Broads, cruise up and down and get hooked as we  all did once, without having to own their own boat. Their entire infrastructure as it's being refered to is entirely in their interests and collectively theirs alone. They are not altruistic 19th century entrepreneurs like Cadbury or Salt, ask Richos or one of the other survivors, they don't waste money. The bean counters who now heavily influence much of UK business (sorry if you're an accountant) are hard headed business men and women who do not spend penny one unless it makes sound business sense. They are risk averse, bottom line focussed and absolutely do not build infrastructure for the benefit of anyone except their business. Those that did are long gone and no longer a business. Richardsons do not invest 250,000 plus on an RC45 unless the Return On Investment makes sense to the bank man who provides the investment opportunity to the business.

I think a few have forgotten what the broads used to be like in the late 60's and through to the 1970's. It may indeed have been a golden era of hiring with 3000 / 5000 plus boats of many shapes and sizes however. Few Herons such that a sighting was a rare thing, few kingfishers, filthy stinking water and straight through toilets. A pootle up the Ant behind a 15 to 20 strong train of boats was not unusual.  I viscerally remember cruising to almost darkness trying to find somewhere to stop and that's how my fondness for mudweighting  originated.

I don't recognise this longed for past as any sort of golden era. We, today have issues but nothing like the huge environmental considerations of only a few decades ago.  We have fantastic boats available for hire with amazing facilities from four or five very innovative suppliers (yes gosh times change go figure that). We have the improved facilities in Salhouse and I remember the outcry at the cost of mooring increase. I am a half full kind of guy and fail to see the relevance of the number, location or use level of private boats being an issue for anyone other than the providers of their mooring and the owners themselves. 

Speaking personally we intend to visit in July for two weeks and August for only one week as August is busy with UK families and we can visit when they can't in July and so we do. We have already spent a lovely Easter break floating as well. So I'm afraid I simply don't see the issue some obviously have with private boats. I hired for 35 years and could only afford a boat once a year or in one year  twice, and always used Martham boats before I bought our old lady.

In the last eight years we as a family have spent at least three, sometimes four weeks afloat every single year, and once, whilst between opportunities...... A continuous 79 days (was bliss) floating.  Our contribution to the local economy which seems to be a bone of contention for some, is likely greater in the last 8 years than in the 35 before that and I don't regret anything.

More tea anyone??

[Regulo]

Two sugars, please, Martin.

Very well said. I've spent more money in the Broads in the last 20 years of ownership, than my whole family did in 40 years of hiring. If I added it all up, I'd realise what a fool I've been in buying a boat. But that's madness for you. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, Regulo said:

Two sugars, please, Martin.

Very well said. I've spent more money in the Broads in the last 20 years of ownership, than my whole family did in 40 years of hiring. If I added it all up, I'd realise what a fool I've been in buying a boat. But that's madness for you. 

Best not to add it all up so you can can continue to consider yourself as sane