Engagement and updates

Scottish Canals will engage with a number of stakeholders throughout the price review, including Scottish Waterways for All, British Marine, RYA Scotland, and marinas around the nation, in order to reach as many boating customers as possible.

Our boating customers will be kept informed through our regular newsletter and our website, which will serve as a central hub for all important information.

We encourage as many boaters as possible to follow our social media accounts for frequent network updates, including the pricing review.

Friday 22nd April

In March 2022, Gerald Eve and The Tourism Resources Company published the report: Scottish Canals Pricing Strategy Review 2022, which sets out their recommendations

Our report has been published (April 2022), and can be seen here:

Scottish Canals’ Pricing Review Response

The 2021/22 review recommends a new price for each residential and leisure mooring site, as well as transit and navigation licences. Any price change to moorings will come into effect at the stage a boater renews their annual fees from 1st June 2022 onwards.

Key points to note from the report:

• Residential prices show a variety of increases and decreases across the network with an overall average of a 4% increase on fees that were charged in April 2021.
• Leisure price changes are fairly consistent across the network with an average increase of 4.5%.
• The pricing review concluded that there will be no change to the Navigation Licence or Transit Licence except annual inflation.

Thursday 17th March 2022

In November 2021, Scottish Canals commissioned two independent specialist consultants – The Tourism Resource Company and Gerald Eve – to conduct the first five-yearly review of pricing of moorings and both navigation and transit licences on Scotland’s canals in a fair and transparent way.

They have taken the original methodology that was established during the 2016/17 Pricing Consultation and conducted a desktop exercise to reflect changes in market conditions. This methodology established that the price of residential moorings would be benchmarked against the rental value of two-bedroom flats in the local market and that Scottish Canals would use 40% of these rates as the baseline (50% for marina settings). The mooring fee at each location was then to be adjusted according to a facilities matrix which set out the availability of toilets, showers, pump out, storage, parking, CCTV etc at each location.

The methodology for leisure moorings consists of benchmarking prices against comparison mooring rates at a standard marina in each location and then using a pricing matrix to apply a discount based on the attractiveness of that location, how far it is to the sea and the services that are available.

Scottish Canals has worked with Scottish Waterways for All (SWfA) to update the 2016/17 facilities matrix and ensure it is accurate and has shared this with the consultants. We have also agreed the best way to communicate the process that is underway, as well as the outcome, with the SWfA Communications Subgroup. Information is also being shared with Royal Yachting Association Scotland, British Marine, SailScotland and marinas around Scotland as well as the Cross Party Group for Recreational Boating and Marine Tourism.

The consultants’ draft report has been shared with SWfA’s Pricing Review Sub Group, led by Neil Kitchener, and a meeting took place on 9th March where SWfA’s Sub Group were able to discuss the report’s findings with the consultants.

The outcome of the review will be published in spring with the implementation date now scheduled for June 2022, although price changes will come into effect on customer renewal dates.

Thursday 23rd December 2021

In 2016/17, Scottish Canals commissioned two independent specialist consultants (Gerald Eve and GVA) to conduct a pricing consultation in order to develop a fair and transparent process for determining the rates of residential and recreational moorings and transit and navigation licences moving forward. As a result of the pricing consultation new fees were agreed and introduced in 2017.

It was also agreed as part of the pricing consultation that an independent pricing review would take place every five years, with the first one scheduled for 2021/22. In November 2021 we appointed two independent specialist consultants; The Tourism Resource Company for the leisure industry and Gerald Eve for the residential market, to carry out the scheduled review.

The original pricing consultation clearly set out the methodology for the pricing review and this included a provision for changes in market circumstances, including available capacity and infrastructure investment, to be taken into consideration when setting out the new fees for the next five years. To help ensure the consultants have an accurate and up to date picture of the networks facilities we are working closely with Scottish Waterways for All to provide them with this information.

We expect to get a draft report in early 2022.