Big bills for balconies
Indeed, in light of what I’ve just written, this next may seem petty. But, even when victims may not be short of a bob or two, I do hate the insolence of public bodies invested with a bit of power. So I spent yesterday morning at the opening of a public inquiry that the Port of London Authority (PLA) must conduct while seeking amendments to its statutory powers. The PLA “owns” and superintends the tidal 90 miles of the Thames, its functions laid down by a 1908 Act of Parliament succeeded by a 1968 Act. The legislation allowed it to require, issue and charge for licences for “river works” for anything on or by the riverbank that might theoretically interfere with navigation. So far, so reasonable.
But the authority has gone rogue. Realising that a domestic balcony overhanging the river’s edge at high tide could (just about) be called a “river work”, it began upping skyward the cost of balcony licences. Balconies, of course, don’t remotely interfere with navigation and most are vertically stacked so the second adds no obstruction to the one beneath. But the PLA finds one developer or timid flat owner who (threatened with a summons) will cough up (say) 400 per square metre; then tells others that’s now the going rate. Rates differ crazily. It’s claimed the PLA’s banditry brings it up to a fifth of its entire revenue, but as it refuses to disclose details, we can’t know. There’s no ombudsman and no accountability except theoretically to ministers, who don’t know anything about it.
My balcony overhangs the tidal Thames. “Shouldn’t you,” I hear you cry, “declare a financial interest?” No. I threatened to take the PLA to judicial review for using statute for purposes parliament had never intended. Its response? To sell me a 999-year peppercorn lease for 3,050. So I’m laughing. Some balcony-owners are now being charged ten times that for a single year.
The Times, Matthew Parris Notebook, Feb. 26, 2025 full version available here [firewall]