I fear the Broads Authority's expenditure on Breydon is an ultra vires activity; as is the maintenance of the extra launch ... not to mention rent and maintenance on Yarmouth Yacht Station. I'm not convinced the Broads Authority is legally capable of delegating authority to expend either public or tollpayers funds outside their area. Humph!

There are quite a few gems in the transcripts, Codpiece but you would have to be in the House to pick up this one.

In support of their bid for a power to give general directions, the Authority submitted a paper some days after they had finished their evidence promoting the Bill.
This showed that the GYPA Act(1990) contained powers to give general directions and then quoted two examples of the General Directions which the Authority would be seeking.

The first example was an opportunist bid to catch the mood of surprise in the committee when they were first told a few days earlier that night navigation was not an unusual practice on the Broads see1453. They asked about navigation aids and you could almost hear the bureaucratic wheels turning.

Controlling night navigation was then given as a reason why the Broads Authority would need powers of General Directions. Did they need to consult anyone before making this pronouncement?
Given our experience to date you can easily understand how a hazard assessment under their SafetyManagementSystem might be framed in the same way as a 'near miss drowning', to prevent night navigation or even, god forbid the Three Rivers or Yare Navigation Races.


The second was to give a General Direction to control the movement of commercial vessels if it was 'windy'. This tells us everything about why they should not have these powers. It also goes to the root of the problem about the relationship between the unskilled bureaucrats at the Authority and the Master of a vessel.

It seems that the Head Navigation Ranger has experience of commercial ships but this may have been confined to a number of passages up the River Yare as an observer on the bridge of a coaster.
The captain of which does this for a living, is qualified by the Government and I guess probably knows the limitations of the vessel he commands.

I worked on coastal tankers for some months and recognize the particular skills which these seamen possess. Handling low powered, single screw ships with hazardous cargoes in and out of small ports all around the UK and near continent, in all weathers, frequently conducting their own pilotage, takes real knowledge and experience, not to mention good judgement.

The Department for Transport however believes that powers to give General Directions can be given to ports (essentially allowing them to make their own law) because to date they have no evidence of misuse!

Talk about Pandora's box.

Sextantly transmitted?

Richard Williams wrote:

Buoys?

I know it can be handy for sailors to have Dorys available when cruising, but I've never favoured pulling a tender behind.

peter waller wrote:

Kier, we are not talking Bill right now!

I am sure our friend in Loddon is glad about that

Someone should introduce Packman to the magical joys of paddling his canoe across a still broad, on a moonlit night, with just the sound of his paddle and the occasional striking pike or disturbed water fowl.

There was serious talk, at one time, of controlling regattas.