Mooring and access.

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Uricanejack

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Just curious and not wanting to get involved with the existing situation somewhere.
I know of Marinas who advertise moorings. Which I imagine is different from a private mooring.

I keep my boat on a private mooring I laid myself with the help of a friend. I was just wondering about the rules for your own private mooring in the UK I presume they might be different between Scotland and England.
For access which is a bit of a PIA I have an inflatable tender I row out from a public dock approx 1/4 mile. Or close to a mile from a ramp. Parking is awkward I can’t leave a car.
Very low cost. Just hardware and some elbow grease and I get a diver to check it occasionally. I was wondering if it is still leagal in the UK.

Just wondering what kind of limitations mooring users put up with. Partly thinking about acquiring a boat in UK. Haven’t done so due to finding somewhere to keep it.
 
Mostly in the South of the UK, it's all regulated and organised.
You go via a club, harbour authority, boatyard or others who will have control of the more useful bits of seabed.
For instance in Portsmouth harbour, various clubs have licenses from the Crown Estate for various areas.
So you join a club and either DIY your mooring or the club organises it, or somewhere in between, a group of about 8 of us used to work together to hire contractors.
Or you just phone up Gosport Boatyard and they'll rent you a fully serviced mooring.
Some areas the Council controls the harbour and they tend to favour only locals having moorings.
 
The Medway is probably typical of many rivers with a mix of moorings.You will be buying two things,ease of access to your boat and paying towards upkeep.
Top of the the heap, couple of marinas with all facilities ,where you bascially park your car, walk along the pontoon to your boat, radio the lock office and go. Paid staff take care of everything.
One also has tidal pontoons adjacent at reduced cost.These tend to be in prime locations close to town centres.

Next comes a couple of places which call themselves " Marinas" but are basically boatyards, offering pontoon moorings, handstandings and boat lifts.Tend to be out of town.
Cheaper still, a broad selection of actual boatyards , smaller independant outfits with a mix of pontoon and mud berths.
Several motorboat clubs provide both pontoon, mud berths, with a clubhouse social and cruise programme, all mantainance carried out by club members.
A multitude of sailing clubs, ranging from probably the largest club on the river where paid staff organise everthing, down to some of the smallest with a few mud berths or handstandings at head of a muddy creek.
More moorings are available but "mainly" restricted to members of the services.
For the really budget minded, Peel Ports do offer mid river trot moorings or for the really keen, at minimal cost, areas you can lay your own moorings. paying a ground rent.It used to be about £120.00 PA.

However finding someway of accessing your pride and joy via a dinghy will not be easy.
Some perfectly good trot moorings right slap bang in middle of Chatham town centre, totally wasted.
The fact that virtually all the piers along the riverfront have been allowed to fall into dangerous dilapidation and those that remain are not very secure has not helped.
Despite a serious fortune being"invested" in developing a vast brownfield site for housing, the major selling point being riverfront views, not one brass farthing has been spent for better access to river .
A concrete wall and a 20ft drop is the nearest the locals will ever get to the water.

Grumble Grumble. :)
 
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In Scotland most moorings are arrange through moorings associations, which are subcontracted by the Crown Estate to adminsiter moorings in a given area. For example, I am a member of the Port Bannatyne Mooring Association. I pay them (from memory) £5 per year membership and £40 per year for the mooring spot, which they pass on to the Crown Estate. I could pay an additional tenner a year for use of the MA dinghy storage area, or I could leave my dinghy on the shore for free, but the boatyard are happy for me to leave it there because I pay for winter storage each year. Some people bring an inflatable with them.

There are commercial mooring providers too, but we have a lot more coastline and a lot fewer boats than England (I read once that there are more yachts based on the Hamble than in Scotland) so the relentless commercialisation of the south hasn't gripped us. As for paying to anchor ...
 
Continuing the Scottish version - Crown Estate claim the sea bed and administers its use for mooring through mooring associations or individual applications which cost double the MA fee. Insurance is mandatory as is annual maintenance and attaching the CE tag to the mooring. My mooring tackle is my property and I pay for all maintenance.
My MA is my yacht club and that is where I keep my dinghy, outboard and oars.
 
I own my own mooring for my larger boat and built and maintain it. I pay rent to the Crown via my MA which is now subsumed into a local YC. Quite a lot around the Somerset Coast like that in various creeks.
 
awol said:
Isn't the foreshore below the high tide line free to wanderers?
Click to expand...

Yup, usually. I suppose if it's soft mud that might not be helpful in this case. Mind you, in this case it's an imaginary foreshore so imaginary waders ought to work fine.
 
And don't forget all the small harbours in Scotland where we have a pontoon mooring for less than many pay for a swing mooring further south.

The foreshore is free to roam, but that does not mean you can walk through someone's garden to get to it, nor does it give you a right to park a car anywhere, But there are many public car parks on the shore that are free and several public slipways.
 
The law in England regarding private moorings requires various permissions and licences. Firstly is the site under the jurisdiction of a 'duly constituted' harbour authority? If so you simply need the HMs permission and to comply with any local regulations. Otherwise you need permission from the owner of the seabed, which may be a traditional estate such as the Duchy of Cornwall or Beaulieu or a Local or other authority You also need a licence from the MMO to place anything on the seabed, and they are very likely to stipulate what type of mooring you can lay. They may for example specify you use an Eco friendly mooring. You can then ask them what type they recommend, and whether they will warrant its suitability in this location. They will not want do that, so may lift the requirement if you push them a bit! But before they issue a new mooring licence they will require an Environmental Impact Assessment for the installation this nowadays costs around £250. RYA website gives more detail on how to set about this.

Or you can just go ahead and lay one, but if anyone complains you risk losing it!

Existing unlicenced moorings will eventually be picked up by MMO, but that is well down their list of priorities.
 
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Thanks.
As I said just wondering about how it works. I probably would worry a bit to much about leaving a boat on a mooring. While out of the country for extended periods. Unless it was somewhere I could get it checked. My mooring is not far from home. Yet I still am away a lot. We used to have a mooring in a popular spot on the west coast. It was sold a few years ago after the boat was sold. When my uncle acquired it several decades ago. It was just there. And the bay was relatively free. Now the bay is full of moorings and they are quite difficult to get. I think there is an association.
 
Work on a mooring can include the removal or significant disturbance of an existing mooring. So existing moorings mostly ok for many years to come unless already in contravention of something like navigation access. Dredging channels i.e. removing mud build up around existing mooing can need permission, and laying new mooring in an area where there are no present moorings can be difficult
 
Yes, the law in England (MCAA2009) now requires that any deposit on the seabed must be approved and licensed through the MMO. This includes the laying of moorings, intentional sinking of a boat or other object, or disposal of material. It also covers temporary racing or nav markers. MMO have also interpreted it to mean that if an existing mooring is lifted for inspection/maintenance, it cannot be relaid without permission. This was particularly relevant to the studland mooring holders, who were accused by NGM of having laid illegal; moorings. CE and MMO granted retrograde licences but warned that permission will have to be sought when they are lifted again for maintenance. This only applies to moorings in uncontrolled waters, and not if there is Harbour master or other controlling authority.
 
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