‘Bristol’s boat dwelling community could be completely swept aside’

Fees for boat dwellers being put forward to cabinet for approval are both shocking and surprising. It has been done in an underhand way and with a lack of evidence.

I feel like our community is about to be completely swept aside, discounted and marginalised even more than it already is.

This has been also happening in a secretive fashion. None of the harbour operation review reports or benchmarking study have been released. The equalities impact statement is completely invalid: it says there is ‘zero impact’ on the users that it affects.

The boat dwelling community, the businesses and the commercial license holders have not even been spoken to about a proposed change to the fees and charges and licensing model. The new costs are comparable to Portishead Marina; they got a lot more for their money there.

It’s more than a doubling of fees for the majority of people. Families and businesses are already struggling since the pandemic and the cost of living crisis, and this will be implemented in April with no opportunity to input any ideas.

I’m not even sure that the boat dwelling community has even been included in the thoughts for these decisions.

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Read more: Anger as boat dwellers and ferries to be hit with huge hike in fees

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It’s cheaper to buy a boat than it is a house. And the fees in Bristol are very notoriously low. There are a lot of people who use boats as affordable housing. That has enabled a vast amount of people to live on boats in the harbour.

Some vessels are lucky enough to have pontoons and fancy services but the vast majority of license holders are on the wall where there is no access. Some have no water or electricity or waste disposal.

Some of the moorings such as at Hannover Quay are already paying quite a premium, with a lovely reed bed, really nice access, nice toilet and laundry room; their moorings are only going up by a few percent.

Some of the boats near Temple Meads, with no services, are currently paying the least – an annual price of £117 per metre – but they are being proposed to go up to £250 per metre

By reshuffling the structure, they are doing a blanket approach to pontoon moorings and non-pontoon moorings but the facilities that each wharf can access are completely different. It’s incomparable.

Boats moored on pontoons at Redcliffe Backs and boats moored against the wall across the water at Welsh Back – photo: Martin Booth

I have lived and worked in the harbour for more than ten years. We now have 140 members of the Bristol Boaters Community Association who came together in 2019 because the harbour review was about to finish. I had only found out by accident that it was going into its final stages, so I started talking to other people and they hadn’t heard about it either.

There were all these changes coming upon us and we needed to get involved, so we formed the association, and it has gone from strength to strength as everyone has got together.

There is a really diverse range of people among Bristol’s boat dwellers. Boat people are really good fun, a really quirky bunch but also likeminded. You can’t shy away from hard work when you’re living on a boat because you have to sort everything out yourself.

They are grafters and people who don’t want for very much.

But these changes will displace our community. There are already people struggling to cover their mooring fees. The lucky people that can afford those fees may stay if they can secure a residential license, but if they are not offered that residential license they will have no choice other than to leave.

We have been told that living on board on leisure licenses will not be tolerated after this review.

The docks infrastructure is crumbling and falling apart: the bridges, the lock gates, the walls. The place needs money. That is apparent to anyone who is walking around. So of course, the easiest way to get that is from the ‘users’.

It’s gentrification. There is a longstanding community who have been here a long time, finding it affordable and existing quite happily. And then up go the prices, people can’t afford to live here anymore so out they go.

Everyone in the community has been so frustrated with the amount of time the harbour review has taken to get done and its on-off on-off nature.

We are ready to engage with the review but now we are at approval stage and the report has not even been released. Changes are happening and there has been no consultation at all.

Having people on boats, not just visiting on a sunny day, gives a ring of neighbourhood watch right on the quayside. More often than not, it’s somebody on a boat who is first on the scene or first on the phone to the emergency services.

Imagine if the people living here were displaced, or the ferry companies went and you didn’t see the boats whizzing up and down the harbour, or the Matthew couldn’t afford to moor here anymore, or no more Sea Cadets in their kayaks; the water would just look different.

There would be a mass exodus of all different types of vessels – the colourful boats, the sail boats, the barge boats, the cruiser boats – and with that inflated price, in would come boats like Miss Conduct and it would look like Portishead.

We would love more support. Talk to the local people you see on boats to understand what their situation is. And please sign our petition: www.change.org/p/save-bristol-harbour-community-from-reckless-city-council-give-us-our-democratic-process

If more people could get a residential license, I would assume that they could get an address, have permission to get a post box, accessing education for children, and health and social care would be easier, they could vote, and they could get a rubbish bin.

So paying a premium for a residential license if you can afford it might well solve all of these problems.

But who is going to get these licenses? How many of them are going to be issued? And what about the people who can’t afford them?

The lack of evidence and the equalities impact assessment saying that there is zero impact is outrageous. What I want to see is for the council to do a proper assessment of the community and their accommodation needs.

How can these people be looked after if we don’t even know if they are really there, or how many there are or what they really need?

Many boat dwellers are already on low incomes, and part of a marginalised and vulnerable community. Getting a residential license would mean that they would be able to access Universal Credit.

Another worry of mine is that this new model is going to happen, the costs are going to go up, there’s going to be a mass exodus of boat dwellers, and then the few people who are left who can afford it still won’t have legitimate licensing.

Have the council got the power or desire to actually give a residential license to everyone who needs a residential license?

Not everyone will be able to afford the residential license anyway and the fee increases are not even comparable to a council tax add-on. It far exceeds that amount.

Everyone is currently jumping hurdles just to try and exist. This new licensing category is fantastic if it’s available for everyone who needs it and wants it, but what about for those people who can’t afford it?

If the life gets washed away from the harbour, it’s going to change the visitor experience for everyone. The place will be changed forever. Imagine if half of the boat dwellers left.

These are not just boats. They are our homes.

Mandy Sharman is the chair of Bristol Boaters Community Association. She has lived on boat in the harbour for more than a decade and works for Bristol Ferry Boats

Main photo of Mandy and her three-year-year old daughter Primrose: Martin Booth

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