BLUEMOMENT

It could be getting busy out there - Scotland’s £130 million sailing tourism economy is set to grow by as much as 28% in the next seven years, according to a new study - http://www.bymnews.com/news/newsDetails.php?id=158054.

We've just had a letter from the Craignish Lagoon Mooring Association seeking a response to a consultation paper that has been circulated.
I've got concerns that the Scottish Office see financial opportunities by raising the costs of enterprises such as those managed successfully over the years by the Crown Estates.
More expensive sailing just around the corner perhaps? After all, lets face it, we are all wealthy yotties are we not?

claymore wrote:We've just had a letter from the Craignish Lagoon Mooring Association seeking a response to a consultation paper that has been circulated.
I've got concerns that the Scottish Office see financial opportunities by raising the costs of enterprises such as those managed successfully over the years by the Crown Estates.
More expensive sailing just around the corner perhaps? After all, lets face it, we are all wealthy yotties are we not?

Have you tried reading it? SWMBO (secretary of West Connel Moorings) has been trying to distil the salient points for MA members. Much hair has been torn trying to get to grips with it.

It's very wide-ranging, as is the Crown Estate, and not much focused on marine matters, let alone moorings. Before this consultation, WHAM was keen to retain a single authority across Scotland to administer moorings, much as they do now. The nightmare scenario is that Argyll council takes over around their coast. They would aim to maximise revenue without much return investment. Other local authoriities may not be the same.

I haven't yet heard WHAM's view on this consultation.

Derek

It is difficult to digest so I'm glad its not just me being dim!
I think I became mildly alarmed when reading of profit and capitalising on opportunities - very much my paraphrasing -
Perhaps its too soon to get stressed - when the SO finds that there is feck all opportunity to make any money out of a handful of mooring associations - they'll piss off and look somewhere else.

I also find it difficult to credit the scale they imagine is possible.?

In a few years the under investment by exploration companies, in finding new oil and gas fields will have jacked up oil /diesel back to silly numbers again, inflation will be up - the pound down? I doubt there will be any real scope for wringing more cash out of sailors, as everybody, but everybody.. will be punching new holes in their belts. The weather isn't likely to lure significantly more people to Scotland than now, so I suspect it might be mostly a non-event.
Plus ca change.

OK, now having read the document, one thing that hits you (me anyway) between the eyes is the £122 per night figure used for calculating expenditure. I know my berth costs £XXXX but once out and about my aim is generally to spend the least I can? £30 to tie up somewhere with leccy/water occasionally is OK, otherwise I anchor whenever I can. The idea of filling all remaining lochs with pontoons or moorings all round the coast is nonsense.
I hope.