Wayne Pritchett on Rivers and Harbours

Lisa: What’s the main activity down at the Quay now and on at the river?

Predominantly leisure. Some of the Cowes sailing clubs, mainly the Island Sailing Centre.

In our area of the river of course which as I say is south of the Folly, there’s only two commercial operators going. Now that is Vestas of course which are manufacturing these large wind turbine blades and they’re shipped out so we charge them per tonne for shipping those blades out.

We don’t get much out of that because of course its based on weight and although those blades might be 50 feet long in old measurement, they don’t weigh much because they are just a fibreglass thing, so there’s not a lot of weight attached to them and they only ship about one blade across at a time, perhaps two and those blades only go about 40 tonnes so we don’t get a lot in that.

And of course, the other commercial operator is up at Newport at Blackhouse Quay where Ralph Cook lands the sea dredged ballast. I mean those ships what come up there are not suction dredgers. They actually go to Southampton and pick up the material off the Wharf over there which has already been washed and cleaned and brought back and unloaded in his Yard which he sells for Ready Mix.

So Vestas, outward shipping of turbine blades and Ralf Cook’s inward shipping of sea dredged ballast is the only commercial trade we’ve got at Newport now.

Apart from that, everything else is visiting yachts, and a few houseboats and a few of what we call ‘Regular Users’.

Now the ‘Regular Users’ are people who predominantly live in Newport, they don’t use boats very often but it’s more convenient to have a boat tied up at Newport than have to go to the Folly, row out to a boat on a mooring. Most of these ‘Regular Users’ up at Newport, they just own a boat I think for the sake of owning one.

In fact, there are one or two outside the old Bargeman’s Rest there haven’t moved for 20 years I don’t expect, but they still keep them there.

And of course, winter storage on the Quay, but of course … since other people came in to the management of my Department, that’s killed stone dead.

I used to lift out, and I’ve got the Record Books here, as I have most stuff, there was a time when I used to lift out 72 boats we lifted on that Quay, soon as Vectis Transport moved out down the northern end, 72 boats we lifted out, but for many years we lifted out 60.

Well this year, they lifted out seven, it’s been going down and going down because the people on the Council have got this silly idea, that to get more money from the people is to put the prices up, which has the opposite effect.

Because people say, “We’re not going to pay that much. To have our boat put on the Quay in a public open space where kids could come down at night with a blessed spray can of paint and write anything on the side of our boat, kick the chocks out, the boat will fall over. It’s cheaper for us to go in a shipyard somewhere, Odessa Boatyard, Island Harbour, Kingston”, anywhere and they’re cheaper than us.