{"id":715,"date":"2013-01-16T13:08:21","date_gmt":"2013-01-16T13:08:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/?p=715"},"modified":"2013-01-16T13:12:45","modified_gmt":"2013-01-16T13:12:45","slug":"more-marinas-despite-fifth-of-current-berths-vacant","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/more-marinas-despite-fifth-of-current-berths-vacant\/715","title":{"rendered":"More marinas despite fifth of berths vacant"},"content":{"rendered":"

20% of canal marina berths are reported to be vacant,\u00a0so why are so many new marinas\u00a0still being planned and built across the canals network?<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"Canal<\/a>
\nOperators of existing marinas are concerned about their businesses and the viability of their industry. Boat owners may enjoy some mooring price competition but many are concerned about the congestion caused by new marinas in popular canal locations. Both groups are annoyed by the increasing numbers of boats on online moorings, especially continuous cruisers paying no mooring fees, but moving them into offline moorings as was promised\u00a0just doesn’t seem to be happening.\u00a0And all the time even more marinas get proposed and built.<\/p>\n

Paul Lillie, the Managing director of Pilling Lock Marina in Leicestershire, has complained to his MP about\u00a0the Canal & River Trust (CRT) allowing new marina proposals in his area\u00a0which he says threaten the whole viability of his business.\u00a0 The consultant who helped prepare his objection to a nearby 652-berth marina at Ratcliffe-on-Soar found that only 48 of the UK\u2019s marina operators are trading at a profit,\u00a077 were showing signs of failing and 45 currently up for sale at a loss on their original capital investment.<\/p>\n

Perhaps the most contentious campaign has been against the 550-berth Barby Pools Marina at Onley, three miles north of Braunston on the Oxford Canal, which has now received planning approval from both local authorities despite many objections.<\/p>\n

Other proposed new canal marinas include Yarnton on the Oxford Canal with 206 berths and a hire boat business, a 252 berth marina at Swindon on the Staffs & Worcester Canal and a 188-berth marina with a 120-bedroom hotel and leisure spa and fitness centre by Ellesmere wharf on the Llangollen Canal.<\/p>\n

CRT chief executive Robin Evans was reported as saying \u2013 \u201cIt is not for the Trust to regulate the supply of marinas on its network. This is a matter for market forces to determine.\u00a0 If we were to try and do this it is almost certain that we would be in breach of competition laws\u201d.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Thanks to Harry Arnold, Waterway Images<\/a>,\u00a0for information.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

20% of canal marina berths are reported to be vacant,\u00a0so why are so many new marinas\u00a0still being planned and built<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":720,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[707],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-waterways-news"],"acf":[],"geo":null,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=715"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":725,"href":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/715\/revisions\/725"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/720"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=715"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=715"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.canaljunction.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=715"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}