Rudolph Hooker -- Marinas, the Last Decade
Adapting to my new role of NNN's old fart (no comment... Matt), I thought it would be worthwhile doing a review for newcomers to the waterways of how this ongoing marina / mooring fiasco came about.
During the great boat building boom of 2002 to 2005 approximately 1500 boats a year were being build by our then flourishing (indigenous) boat building industry. Anyone with half a brain knew this was not sustainable in the longer term, especially as very few new moorings were being created. Even worse, the poseurs who bought their "status boats" expected top-notch marinas in which to display their latest, "in your face", toy. By roughly 2004 all moorings of any kind were taken and people with lower spec boats were being forced out the newest marinas to make way for the poseur brigade.
Some people are convinced that the old BW contrived this situation because they then saw to it mooring prices doubled in the next two years. Remember, by this time BW Marinas Ltd was buying every Marina it could lay it's hands on to create a near total mooring monopoly. Then of course the bubble burst. The advice to any prospective owner had been, from 2004 onwards, "get a mooring first". As there were none to be had, they took their money elsewhere. During 2006 boat builders going bust was a weekly event. The industry was decimated by the dearth of new orders. Would you pay 200K+ for a boat and it leave on the towpath unattended for day after day? No chance.
Things were so desperate BW went so far as to admit it's previous policy of discouraging private marinas had been unhelpful (i.e. wrong!.... Matt). In the great British tradition the solution was to set up a committee, well the New Marinas Unit to be precise. Their job was to encourage private enterprise to build marinas for them (BW) and save them the trouble and the money. However, they estimated these marinas would cost around £2.5M a go. To many people that seemed an awful lot for what is basically a hole in the ground filled with water. And so it proved. Out of the estimated 11,000 spaces required only around 1200 actually came about.
So here we are in 2011, still 10,000 berths short and with no boat building industry to speak of. Most of the shells and completed boats are imported from Poland or China with just a few UK fit-out firms doing specialist work for wealthy (300K+ per boat!) clients.
No one, BW or AV(2010)PLC, has, to my knowledge, ever recycled the revenue it got from canal side property and land sell-offs into marina building. In a just society that would be a hanging offence.
