Mooring Auctions – and how to push more boaters into continuous cruising

MOST boaters were opposed to the BW (now CRT) mooring auction system from the start. It would, they argued push up prices, benefit only the richer boaters and make the types of mooring in shortest supply simply unaffordable for most.

The British Waterways argument was that they were obliged by Government to go to auctions to demonstrate they were not abusing their near-monopoly position and, in any event, none of that would happen and many moorings might go down in price as well as up.

We are now in the Canal & River Trust era and the moorings auction system seems to be going badly off the rails.
I have observed the site closely over the last couple of years and there are clear trends which are disturbing both for the future income of the Trust and the financial well-being of boaters.

Let’s start with so-called reserve prices – always excused as the price “ below which it would not be economic for us to let the mooring”.

If the object, as originally claimed, was to establish a proper market for moorings then reserve prices would genuinely reflect the cost of supply them – that is the price of installing a few rings and, if you are really lucky, a tap, spread over many years. It would be a few quid, certainly mo more than £100 or so.

That never was the reality but at least there was some potential for getting a cheap mooring. In recent months reserve prices have soared. Take a current example of a 62ft towpath side mooring on the Leeds and Liverpool near Chorley with no facilities at all except rings.

The guide price for the mooring is £1,300 and the reserve price is just £130 less at £1,170. The same pattern is repeated across the country and must I suspect be related to the transfer of mooring auctions from the boating part of CRT to the property and commercial arm where greed has always been much more important than boaters, canals or any other consideration – the ethos of the estate agent rules.

That is clearly a distortion of the market process and that distortion continues when, predictably, the mooring does not sell and it is offered for sale on a ‘Buy it Now’ basis. The price at which it is then offered is not the reserve price but the higher guide price.

My checks on the site indicate that rather than moorings being allowed to go more cheaply during a depressed market they are going unsold instead, depriving the Trust of income and forcing more and more poorer boaters into a form of continuous cruising.

The situation is exacerbated, of course, where moorings or a type of mooring is in short supply, such as London, the Kennet and Avon or residential mooring almost anywhere.

More do get bought but at prices artificially inflated by scarcity, so it is not a problem for well-heeled boaters but the substantial proportion with small incomes cannot compete and are driven out or forced to find another solution.

We have met several Londoners who boat for a hobby but cannot afford London mooring prices. They, quite legally, place their boat on a 14 day mooring in a popular spot with good train connections; leave it there for two weeks to move it to the next place on a subsequent visit.

So all those popular moorings where holiday boaters can’t stop because they are full are likely to be occupied, at least in part by other hobby boats rather than liveaboards.

The RBOA are calling for more, cheap, online, residential moorings in places like London and the K&A but that will not solve anything if those moorings are also part of the current, distorted, mooring auction system which discriminates in favour of the wealthiest boaters.

In fact, the system is so badly misaligned that it has even meant CRT losing out on the most in-demand moorings. Residential moorings for a 62ft boat on the Engine Arm in Birmingham, where there is electricity, water and other facilities are simply not selling because they are too expensive. Currently the guide price is £2,176 and the reserve price £1,741. One is currently up for the guide price as a ‘Buy it Now’ and another is in the auction system. On past form both could stand empty costing CRT thousands of pounds instead of bringing in a lower, more reasonable income – bearing in mind we are looking at Birmingham industrial areas rather than London and the South East.

CRT Head of Boating, Sally Ash, who is no longer responsible for the mooring auctions, claims that one reason for the introduction of the system was because waiting lists were too difficult and expensive to manage.

I would suggest they are neither and are certainly a better way of assuring a steady income stream than auctions which leave berths empty for long periods of time, bringing in no income whatsoever.

CRTs estate agents now running the system have forced up reserve prices to ludicrous levels, distorting and destroying any claim that it represents a truly free market. The only freedom is for mooring prices to rise where the sites are most desirable, there is no scope for them falling in poorer areas and the result is yet more empty spaces.

Empty spaces also mean more reluctant continuous cruisers, taking their chances with the rules, more frustrated hobby boaters and a deteriorating situation across the country.

It is not as if the system actually achieves true market pricing, not only because of the high reserves set but also because prices on an individual mooring site fluctuate madly, vacancy by vacancy. If you get two determined, well-off boaters bidding the guide price can double but a few weeks later, with only one person interested they only pay the inflated reserve. The result is a ludicrous disparity on the same stretch of moorings.

The Trust no longer needs worry about being competing unfairly with its mooring sites as it is no longer a Quango and could easily revert to a waiting list system.

Despite the concerns of Sally Ash it is fairly simple to operate an electronic waiting list system that is fair to all, doesn’t distort prices and gives all boaters a chance of buying a mooring they can afford.

There are already established prices for all mooring sites. Boaters can be invited to join the waiting list for up to a certain number of sites in one area. Once they come to the top of the list and there’s a vacancy they are told electronically and by post and have a set time to accept. If they decline it goes to the next in line and if there is no current demand it can be advertised.

Sites where demand is non-existent can lower their prices until the CRT is getting at least some income and prices can be adjusted to deal with more than just supply and demand.

If there is an areas with an overcrowding problem on busy visitor moorings, holding nearby long term moorings at a lower price may well result in an improvement. Mooring prices then become a tool of CRT policy rather than a failing commercial attempt to exploit boaters to the greatest extent possible.

Mooring auctions are already a failing experiment. The time has come for them to go.