Victory for Locks Heath’s Warsash Sailing Club: harbour dues for sailing dinghies set to be removed

Warsash Sailing Club are celebrating a victory as the Hamble River Select Committee agree to recommend to the River Hamble Harbour Authority that no harbour dues should be paid by sailing dinghies on the Hamble.

 

Warsash Sailing Club have been opposed to the charges since the Harbour Authority introduced them in 2006 to cover their rising costs. The Sailing club agreed not to take their fight to the Secretary of State for Transport so long as a temporary Select Committee was set up to allow the matter to be discussed without an expensive Public Inquiry.

 

Chaired by Councillor Seán Woodward, the Committee included representatives of local borough councils, yacht clubs, commercial interests on the River and the Royal Yachting Association.

 

As a result of the recent discussions the committee has now recommended to the Harbour Authority that all craft using the River Hamble should be liable to pay harbour dues, however some categories, including sailing dinghies, should be zero-rated, thereby exempting them from paying harbour dues of up to £25 a year.

 

The Committee also recommended the removal or modification of the current limit on the number of moorings permitted, and for the Harbour Authority to focus its attention on improving facilities for river users and seek funding to help with issues such as conservation.

 

The Harbour Authority will consider the recommendations when they next meet on 29th March.

 

Michael Sterne, honorary secretary of Warsash Sailing Club, told the Daily Echo: “We are very pleased with this outcome and believe that the select committee has been a great success.

“A public inquiry would have been very expensive for both sides, so we were eager to sit down with the authority and settle these matters locally.

“Scrapping the charges will be a great boost for the area, with more younger people going out onto the water, not being discouraged by unfair dues.”

 

You can read the full details of the recommendations here, and there will be a further opportunity for us to comment on these recommendations at the River Hamble Annual Forum to be held on 16 March at the Victory Hall, Warsash starting at 7.30pm.

 

Previous story here.