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Publication Date: 20 June 2007
IWA Condemns British Waterways’ Trial of Tendering Mooring Vacancies
IWA Condemn British Waterways for adding uneccessary bureaucracy, lack of fairness to existing applicants on waiting lists and the social in-justice caused by the proposed trial of tendering for mooring vacancies.
Roger Squires, chairman of IWA’s Navigation Committee, commented ‘IWA’s Navigation Committee members consider that, with the current shortage of mooring spaces, such a trial is unnecessary and creates additional expense and bureaucracy for British Waterways at a time when it is under funded by government.’
A representative of the Association attended an informal workshop on the process, not because IWA agreed with the policy but to try and get some sense and reason into the process, for example by persuading British Waterways that an Ebay style auction was completely inappropriate.
Roger Squires continued, ‘This system will not provide British Waterways with a balanced view of the market value of moorings as it only includes moorings where there is a waiting list. The concept is also seen as introducing a bias in mooring allocations towards those more financially able, so skewing the opportunities for all to gain fair access to scarce local moorings. Commercial operators offer price lists for their moorings, so allowing a degree of certainty for access and budgeting, which the proposed tender system does not provide.’
Roger Squires concluded, 'With this proposal British Waterways is completely out of tune with boaters’ real needs and, instead of devoting its energies towards finding more mooring sites, is simply adding an unnecessary additional obstruction to boaters obtaining those mooring sites that are currently vacant.'
