There has been outrage from Bristol’s boating community in recent weeks over the steep hike in fees approved by the council, which are due to be implemented in April. Many claim there has not been enough transparency over the harbour review and want consultation with Bristol City Council on the approved increases in harbour fees, some of which are set to double.
Fees boaters must pay include for pontoons, operating ferries, using showers, lifting and swinging bridges, and much more. Many of these fees are set to massively increase from April, well above inflation. The council said the increase will help pay for upgrades to facilities around the harbour, which boaters said were in very poor condition.
The issue has been plagued with controversy, and has included Bristol mayor, Marvin Rees apologising after calling the community ‘a privileged few’ who were ‘abusing the system’ when defending the increases. Bristol’s boating community hit back and said they were a wide diverse group from ferry operators to boat dwellers who have said you have to be handy and hardy to live on a boat. But what is life really like for Bristol's boating community who say the reward of their lifestyle is the lapping water lulling you to sleep.
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Sabina Douglas, who is retired and has stayed on her boat for the last 23 years, prefers living on the water to being on land. She said: “I used to live in North Bristol and when my children were young, we would come down to the harbour every Saturday and I’d always try and find reasons to come back on Sunday.
“I haven’t got a telly, I think life goes by if you have too many screens. I only have a radio and all of life is happening right outside my window. I enjoy the serenity of living here, I find the motion very relaxing and looking out of my window, there is always movement where a house is static.”
Sabrina, who enjoys watching a resident kingfisher and the cormorants drying themselves on the pontoons, adding : “The air is beautiful too. The boating community is a close-knit community and always have each others’ backs. You know you can always get help from next door, we all know each other,” she said.
She described the price hikes for boaters as a “body blow”, adding: “The boating community are being asked to bear the brunt of the costs. In 2021 the mayor said that Bristol’s harbour was an important asset for everyone, everyone should pay for that asset including the wider Bristol public.”
Maria Hernandez Fuentes, who is in the pharmaceutical industry, often works on the boat she shares with husband Andy Thomason who is an IT engineer. They have a house and do not live on the boat permanently, but do enjoy working aboard the boat. She said: “These days as long as you have a table and a computer, you can work from anywhere and we enjoy working together on the boat.”
She said when they do stay overnight on the boat: “You sleep well with the movement and in the summer we sit on the deck and it’s very entertaining with all the things that are happening. The community is very varied with people having so many kinds of jobs from nurses and teachers to entrepreneurial jobs where they go off for a few months and those people who work in the harbour.”
Her husband started building the boat in 2011 and it was floated in 2013. She said: “There are a lot of people who build their boats, it’s much easier than building a house.” She highlighted that boats need on-going maintenance, saying : “Boaters are enterprising people, they will not just sit back and relax as you have to know everything is working. I have learned about electricity, pump works and piping.”
With regard to the proposed steep increases in fees, Maria said: “We were aware that the fees were being increased, that was not a surprise and we tried very hard to have consultations with the council, we want to sit down with the council.”
Helen Wakeham who lives on her boat with two children and her dog, said the whole family enjoy water sports and the healthy lifestyle living on the water provides. “The location is really good as we are half an hour away from the city and half an hour away from the country," she added.
“We have a rowing boat, kayak and board so it’s great for the children. When I first moved here there were no facilities, shops or restaurants or the residential buildings of Wapping Wharf, it was semi-derelict.”
Helen confirmed she has a residential agreement to live on her boat, saying with the approved increases her fees would double. She said: “That would be prohibitive. It’s important to say that everyone enjoys visiting the harbour and so it’s not right to expect the boat owners to pay for it all.
“There are a lot of people living in the flats and using the restaurants. We want to pay our fair share and have increases every year, but it’s not right that only the boaters must pay,” she said.
Ben and Phoebe Ewing live on their boat with their two year old baby and Phoebe is expecting their second child in August. They are both electricians and run their own business, often away for work with the boat as their base. They said that living on a boat made them more aware of the environment through dealing with day to day conditions such as waste and water. Phoebe added: "It's not an easy lifestyle and not an attractive lifestyle in winter, but it's such a wonderful community here."
Ben who has lived on a boat for 14 years said: "I can't get my head around a mortgage and how much you end up paying for a house over the years. I enjoy waking up in the morning and seeing the ripples and the sun reflecting off the water. Living close to nature is what everyone wants and needs, we don't have a green space, we have the harbour."
The harbour fee hike is one part of the council’s plan to charge more for some public services, while also cutting budgets for those same services. The amount the council receives from Westminster has massively fallen since 2010, due to the government’s austerity measures, and the council has few powers to raise its own revenue.
Speaking at a cabinet meeting last month where the price hike was approved Mr Rees said: “We’re trying to better manage the harbour, but there’s no cost-free way of doing so. There will be a process that people go through to apply [for residential licences]. I can’t guarantee anyone gets any licences. But I can guarantee that there will be a process that people can work through.
“I know it’s painful for people but we have to do this review, for the sake of the future of the harbour. The fees have not been reviewed for 20 years. I know there has been inflationary increases, but in real terms they have gone down and that means the harbour operates at a loss. I’m sorry if you’ve felt hurt by some of the stuff that’s happened. I’ll have to try and understand why. We have time to talk with you, and nothing happens until April.”
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