Central London mooring £70,000 - boat thrown in for free

Someone's just advertised a boat for sale in central London, with mooring included. The boat's a 45ft trad narrowboat, built in 1985. It's highly unlikely to be worth much over £25,000, and the £70,000 asking price probably reflects a hefty premium for the mooring.

It's conventionally said that before you buy a boat, you should look for a mooring. Not really true; it's easy enough to find moorings around the country. Depends how fussy you are about the boat's location.

But London's moorings - inevitably - come at a tremendous premium, and residential ones even more sought-after. Mike Stevens gives a useful summary on available residential moorings.

The most famous and expensive (because they are so photogenic) are at Little Venice, near Paddington, but there are moorings stretching along the Grand Union Paddington Arm, the Regent's Canal and parts of the River Lee that would qualify as 'Central London'. Don't expect them to be cheap. The £70,000 boat+mooring probably won't even buy you the mooring - it'll just be the right to pay the ongoing mooring fee, which could well be another £5,000 per year.

Comments

[Rachel Wright]

Yasmine you are mad!!!!!!

[Kimberley]

Hiya,

I'm in the first stages of buying a boat (London/Kent) area but finding the mooring is more difficult than I thought. British Waterways are unable to be of any help and said that the mooring they provide is being changed to a tender (option for people who expressed interest to put in a bid) and the waiting list has been suspended while they sort this out but it's an average of 2-7yrs waiting with over 10,000 people looking into this as well.

Can anyone help with suggestions of things I could do to make things easier on myself (other than staying in my flat ha ha) or does anyone know of anyone in the London/Greater london area who could help.

Any info greatly appreciated.

Thanks

Kimberley :)

[Yasmine Haigh]

Hi,
Ive just noticed this site & infact this may have been my advert! A few points to correct here. The boat was a 1999 & not 1985. It was worth considerably more than £25,000. Secondly, I waited 6 years on a waiting list for this mooring which incidently is only £3,000pa (for central London, this is cheap). The List does not exist anymore. The Marina Office gets at least 20-30 calls a day asking if there is a list. The answer is NO. So if anyone wishes to live on a mooring in Central London, the ONLY way to do this is to buy a boat on a mooring. If someone does not like the price, then they don't have to buy it!! The boat was NOT 'thrown' in for free (that's IF this was my advert which started Central London Mooring £70,000 48 foot) It was a very much loved boat bought almost new!!!! It has since been sold.