Two more Moorings to be lost

[imtamping2]

Sorry I could not resist and was wondering how long it would be before the first reply

[ChrisB]

Let us all for once step outside the square and look in. Forget the mooring bit and take the helicopter big view! Of the BA.

• Tolls still very good value for money.
• Conservation of area very good
• NP rebrand welcomed by hire industry and general tourism if it brings in more heads and cash
• Services considering the cuts still good and those lost outside BA control.
• Has there been wholesale redundancies No
• Is there a vast staff turnover? Not at the sharp end.
• Dredging going ahead well.

Like it or not, given the difficulties of pleasing umteen sectors they are doing a very good job in difficult circumstances. And on top of that poor old JP can't even control his own budget as half the income can only be spent on certain things. 

Running a "Not for Profit" cost centre is no easy task. You only have to look at what is happening in Social Services, Police, Fire and the National Health.

I don't know if the BA staff read the various forums but it must be a bit depressing for them to have a large section of their customers moaning ad infinitum. 

I know I started this thread and loss of moorings is a major concern but I feel if the use of hire yards mid week for when people need to shop in say Stalham, Wroxham, Potter and Brundall were more widely made known to the hiring puplic on holiday then in the short term things could be eased. 

Merry Christmas All.

 

[quo vadis]

Tango whiskey Oh sorry I can't say that can I 

[JennyMorgan]

• Tolls still very good value for money.
• Conservation of area very good
• NP rebrand welcomed by hire industry and general tourism if it brings in more heads and cash
• Services considering the cuts still good and those lost outside BA control.
• Has there been wholesale redundancies No
• Is there a vast staff turnover? Not at the sharp end.
• Dredging going ahead well. 

Chris, as always there are two sides to every story. On the surface you are quite right but dig a little deeper, all is not quite as it could be. Tolls, around 50% is hived off for non navigational purposes, e.g. overheads. Tolls might be good value, debatable, but are we getting good value from our tolls when only half is used for the navigation? 

Conservation, agreed, very welcome, but with reservations.

NP branding, not welcomed by all and seen as an underhand precursor to an attempt to gain full NP status by many, including some yard owners. The harsh reality of National Parks is the Sanford Principle and the yard owners that I have spoken to are well aware of the less than welcome implications.

Many services are good, indeed some are excellent, such as yacht station staff & tolls office.

Redundancies, been a few, information kiosks for one thing. There is a sound argument  that more non-job redundancies should have taken place.

Staff turnover, umm, there have been, over the years, sharp end staff that were very good indeed, but for various reasons they have moved on. Staff turnover in the planning department is high.

Dredging, yes, something of a success story but, for whatever reason, the Authority had to be dragged kicking and screaming into dredging Heigham Sound, perhaps because of conservation issues?

Many people don't realise that the Authority is made up of its members, members that are supposed to set policy, and the executive that is supposed to put those policies into place. The reality is that policy is executive lead, the members expected to unquestioningly support the executive. Thankfully some members are beginning to question the executive.

Whilst there is much that is good within the Authority there is little doubt that the trust held by the boating community is at an all time low, and with good reason. 

 

[Guest]

9 hours ago, JennyMorgan said:

.........Whilst there is much that is good within the Authority there is little doubt that the trust held by the boating community is at an all time low, and with good reason. ......

Of the 10,000 plus toll payers, how many do you personally know for a fact that hold that view Peter ? (aside from the huge number of hirers and tourists).

My circle of Rond acquaintances have mixed views about the BA, but most would agree with ChrisB's post, including me.

The BA makes numerous mistakes, but I still find them much more preferable to the faceless Environment Agency, my previous toll collectors on the Fens.

[ExMemberBobdog]

9 hours ago, ChrisB said:

 

I don't know if the BA staff read the various forums but it must be a bit depressing for them to have a large section of their customers moaning ad infinitum. 

 

 

"large section"???  Not really.  Same old, same old.  You can virtually guarantee that whatever the original subject of the thread, at some point the magical letters 'BA' will appear, and set off a Pavlovian reaction from the usual few suspects, barking and howling "Packman, Packman, Packman".

[JennyMorgan]

Thank you, Strowager, for your predictable balance to the debate!

Of the 10,000 plus toll payers do you personally know for a fact that don't hold similar views to myself?

My circle of Broads friends also have mixed views about the BA and  most certainly have similar reservations to my own, indeed some, boatyard owners amongst them, are far more damning than myself and can see no good whatsoever in the Executive staff. Personally I believe in giving credit where it's due, as well as criticism.

My own personal dealings with the Environment Agency have always been positive and their responses professional. The flood alleviation scheme, whilst possibly not flawless. has moved ahead without the hand wringing and wailing that often accompanies Authority schemes, the EA has certainly got on with the job in hand and done it. What they are like away from the Broads I don't know but on the Broads, as I say, in my experience, they get on with the job and generally do it well, gabion baskets in the New Cut excepted. Unfortunately it's not the job of the EA to provide moorings, the only real downside of their involvement in the Broads.

 

[Guest]

1 minute ago, JennyMorgan said:

Thank you, Strowager, for your predictable balance to the debate!

Of the 10,000 plus toll payers do you personally know for a fact that don't hold similar views to myself?................

QED Peter........

Neither of us has proof of which view has the largest support.

 

Nothing wrong with balance Peter...........

[JennyMorgan]

Re trust in the Authority, some issues ago Anglia Afloat raised the very same thorny topic and the editor expressed his opinion that, regrettably, trust was at an all time low, he even quoted an official report to the same effect. Just wish that AA editorial was available on line, if only to show that I am not alone in my thoughts.

[JennyMorgan]

7 minutes ago, Strowager said:

QED Peter........

Neither of us has proof of which view has the largest support.

 

Nothing wrong with balance Peter...........

Exactly.

[batrabill]

Ahem....

https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/74305

 

[MauriceMynah]

I'm sorry Batrabill, but that petition throws no light on either sides argument, indeed just the reverse. It has already been used to illustrate victory for each of the opposing sides.

It is BECAUSE there is no irrefutable evidence for either side, that the debate returnes more frequently than birthdays and Christmases put together. ( I might add that the older we get, the less we look forwards to them. and I'm not saying which!!! ).

We each hold views, some more strongly than others. I for example have no great objection to the closing of the afore mentioned moorings, but that's because I never used them and I am, at heart, one of the most selfish unsociable critters you'rer ever likley to meet   . If I don't want to use them then nobody else would ( I'm arrogant as well as selfish.) and if nobody want's to use them they're a waste of money. Personally I'd rather see the dredging of Waxham cut!

[Guest]

1 hour ago, batrabill said:

Ahem....

https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/74305

 

Interestingly, another National Park UK Government Petition was running at the same time about the Lake District NP and its "unelected" management.

That received a similar level of UK wide support, 381 signatures in three months.

https://petition.parliament.uk/archived/petitions/65214

 

[LondonRascal]

The link to the petition says so much to me, that it closed in March this year with just 407 signatures.

So out of the many thousands of people who use the Broads, who frequent the Forum and others like it, just 407 people put their name to it.  There are other petitions out there too for different causes, with considerable more signatures -  but if I were in ‘Broads Towers’ I’d see it as some noise on the sidelines of no great concern and certainly no need to change things. 

To me, there is nothing really fundamentally wrong with the Broads Authority, but in many ways I see it like a building.  I often see large building today, it may have been designed and constructed in the late 1960’s and frankly looks a right mess standing out amongst others and I think ‘whoever approved that’. Then I may come across an old photograph that shows the building as it was in the space it occupied when it was built – then I see the space around it, the way other street furniture compliments it and so on and then I suddenly see the actual idea, the vision. 

I compare the then and now and see just how everything has been cluttered up and changed and over the years as countless planners have had their say and input to turn a small area in to a shoddy mess and as other buildings have gone up around it and spaces have changed and things removed or added without a wider plan.

 The building may not have been so bad, it was what happened around it that was the problem.  So you see when the Broads Authority came into being, the idea the ‘vision’ was simple and I think looking back over things, even press cuttings on historical websites I can ‘get’ what the point was but over the years it has almost forgotten what it actually is. 

The Broads Authority of today handles so many more areas than it ever envisaged it would – and one has to remember that every change, every new idea and plan has a cost and here is the crunch - it is the very people who use the rivers who need to pay the authority in their tolls and it’s not just the individual but businesses to - vast sums of money being collected year after year with very little opportunity for true transparency and accountability being offered in return.  

The authority will in the main just present to ‘its subjects’ a list of projects that it is undertaking, I am sure many just accept it but increasingly people question it and want more of a say, perhaps just to be heard and be known that they have indeed been heard and taken into account.  However, the undemocratic ‘feel’ to things is what I dislike whereby you have someone appointed to run the authority but, unlike a company that has to perform well in the market, has shareholders to worry about and so on so when it is doing well it is great but when it is not, often the first person out is the head at the top but not so with the Broads Authority.

While market forces may not directly impact it (it is not selling and buying things) if it gets things wrong or focuses too much in certain areas and money is spent – or wasted in some people’s eyes – what can actually happen to the man at the top?  Not a lot. 

It is not lack of experience or someone not being up to the job, what I think is missing is drive and motivation and a real passion for the wider good.  It is not exactly the most ’high paced’ and pressured world, but fresh blood can bring new ideas and better working practices if nothing more than to improve the value for money that the people who must pay can get.

Who would want to change things in the long term?  If you rocked the cart too much you might lose the stability at the top, and then it would become harder to recruit those with the experience who want to stay and actual progress with a more open, frugal authority that worries more about the rivers and surrounding environment and not about a pub who wants to build an extension or some moorings that someone has an argument about if they can use them for 1 or 10 boats etc or getting involved with brands and marketing and tourism.  However, for the time being I think the Broads Authority is simple stuck in a long rut blindly following it while forgetting where it has come from and without the ability to alter course and should anyone try to suggest a new direction are never heard.

[JennyMorgan]

A worthy comment, Robin, relevant and thought provoking. You made one very relevant point, ' The Broads Authority of today handles so many more areas than it ever envisaged it would'. This is very true but that is a hurdle of its own making. The Broads Act's legislative requirements are the same today as when the Broads Authority came into being, nothing, in that respect, has changed. Unfortunately expansionism & empire building has become the driving force.

Originally planning duties were carried out by the various local planning authorities on behalf of the Broads Authority, not perfect but it worked well enough, especially since planning is now largely down to box ticking. We now have a in-house planning, at a cost, that is ticking the same boxes, only at far greater expense.

We then have an Authority that has stepped beyond its executive area, Lound and Fritton Lakes for example. There is some logic to their involvement but there is no requirement. The same can be said of Whitlingham Lakes, sometimes misnamed a Broad, that didn't even exist when the Authority was created.  

There is also absolutely no requirement for the BA to chase the holy-grail of being a National Park, a quest that has cost/wasted tens of thousands of pounds. The more recent Broads Bill started off life as the Broads National Park Bill and if we link that to the subsequent Broads Bill then hundreds of thousands of pounds was largely wasted. A great deal of that money was hived off DEFRA grants that were specifically earmarked for catching up on the backlog of maintenance around the navigation. 

Marketing is not the same as promotion. There is no requirement for the Authority to be involved in marketing, it neither has the expertise nor the need.

As you are probably aware, the Authority is shortly having to defend it branding of the Broads as a National Park in the courts. No guarantee that it will win, and hopefully it won't, but should you visit Yare House and be offered a cup of coffee then it will probably be served in a nice new Broads National Park mug, a mug that could become a collectors piece as testament to the Authority's thwarted ambition! 

 

[Matt]

I have seen on Facebook

 that signs have been put up on the Island and mooring during the day is £4 and overnight is £8.

 

Never was a fan of Horning anyway.....

[ChrisB]

Unless "stern to"  the charging formula should be linear.  Why should a 45ft Broadsman with half the capacity of Wembley Stadium on board pay eight quid and I have to pay the same for my twenty footer with two of us.

Maybe, just maybe all moorings should be pay by length. Maybe tolls should be  banded A to Z and what ever your band is that is what you pay at a mooring.

 

[Bound2Please]

6 minutes ago, ChrisB said:

Unless "stern to"  the charging formula should be linear.  Why should a 45ft Broadsman with half the capacity of Wembley Stadium on board pay eight quid and I have to pay the same for my twenty footer with two of us.

Maybe, just maybe all moorings should be pay by length. Maybe tolls should be  banded A to Z and what ever your band is that is what you pay at a mooring.

 

Sounds rather like the poll tax and that never worked in practice either.

Charlie

[Baitrunner]

13 minutes ago, ChrisB said:

Unless "stern to"  the charging formula should be linear.  Why should a 45ft Broadsman with half the capacity of Wembley Stadium on board pay eight quid and I have to pay the same for my twenty footer with two of us.

Maybe, just maybe all moorings should be pay by length. Maybe tolls should be  banded A to Z and what ever your band is that is what you pay at a mooring.

 

I would much rather they implemented this in the marina where I moor. You can have a 30 footer next to a 45 footer, stern on and taking up the same quay heading space. Yet one pays 50% more than the other. They would probably just change the charging to width though and pay by the inch!! Working on the theory the longer boats are slightly wider (although it gets to a point where that is negligible).

[JennyMorgan]

Sailing boats tend to be narrower than fart-boats so when moored stern-to they should then surely pay 25% less, shouldn't they?! 

[imtamping2]

2 minutes ago, JennyMorgan said:

Sailing boats tend to be narrower than fart-boats so when moored stern-to they should then surely pay 25% less, shouldn't they?! 

Hey JM what is a fart boat, haven't come across one of them as yet ?

[JennyMorgan]

2 minutes ago, imtamping2 said:

Hey JM what is a fart boat, haven't come across one of them as yet ?

Awww, come on, they go pop-pop-pop and make an anti-social smell, loads of 'em on the Broads!

[fishtone]

Any signs up at Woodbastwick yet?

[rightsaidfred]

A boats a boat a mooring is a mooring the only loosers are the owners of the mooring if they are getting £16 from two 45 footers as against £24 from three 30 footers.

Fred

 

[BroadScot]

12 minutes ago, imtamping2 said:

Hey JM what is a fart boat, haven't come across one of them as yet ?

The answer to that is blowing in the wind ! 

Iain