Article in Private Eye – Issue 1644 – 7 March 2025
TRANSCRIPT (AI-generated)
Port in a Storm
Questions for the guardians of the Thames, as the Port of London Authority (PLA) defends a wide-ranging rights grab affecting those living on and alongside the river as well as public access to the foreshore.
The PLA, which controls the river from Teddington to Southend, is seeking a Harbour Revision Order (HRO) it says is needed to modernise the river regime, ensure safe navigation and deal with “technological advances.” But opponents say it represents a power shift that prioritises the PLA’s income and commercial interests over environmental concerns or the public’s enjoyment of longstanding rights to use the river.
A public inquiry, called by the Marine Management Organisation, heard in February of the PLA’s apparent conflicts of interest along the river, where it is commercial landowner, lender, regulator and licensor.
Changes under the HRO would give it far greater powers than landowners or landlords. These include increased rights to board and inspect vessels, including houseboats, to demand the identity of all occupiers (rather than just the owner or master of the vessel), and limits on the establishment of public rights of way over PLA-licensed structures such as footbridges.
The PLA told the inquiry it needed such powers to maintain river safety, but campaigners note that, as written in the order, the powers are not limited to safety matters. PLA head of estates Ben Fanning admitted to the hearing that limits on rights of way were also needed to “protect future potential income.”
Boating organisations highlight new restrictions and fees on mooring, saying they would be an “arbitrary and punitive restriction on the basic public right of navigation,” which includes necessary rights to moor, anchor and ground in accordance with normal safety rules.
Why there is such resistance to expanding PLA powers is suggested by evidence from the Tower Bridge Yacht and Boat Company, which told the inquiry the PLA had been “taking advantage of its monopoly position in demanding bigger and bigger payments for its river works licences, which bear no relationship either to inflation, or to anything else.”
Even more inexplicably, the PLA has imposed huge increases on the annual licences people must pay if they have a balcony overhanging the river. Residents have “no choice but to pay the charges that the PLA demand,” even though some have seen this annual charge increase eleven-fold in ten years, for no discernible reason.
The inquiry is ongoing.