Peel Ports Clydeport has halted plans to charge small boat owners a £100 annual “leisure vehicle conservancy fee” following widespread opposition from IWA, other waterways interest groups, politicians and individual boat owners. See IWA’s story on the proposal in January 2025.
The proposed fee would have applied to all boats between 6 and 24 metres in length operating over a range of 450 square miles of the Firth of Clyde, including Loch Fyne and Gare Loch, the southern entrance to the Crinan Canal and the river Clyde up to Albert Bridge in Glasgow. IWA has been promoting greater use of the Clyde for recreational boating by its inclusions in the Silver Propeller Challenge, with destinations at Rutherglen and Bowling Basin at the entrance to the Forth & Clyde Canal.
Boat owners branded Peel Ports’ proposal a “cash grab” and “extortion,” arguing it would harm tourism and make boating unaffordable for many retirees. Member of the Scottish Parliament Stuart McMillan led a petition and parliamentary debate against the plan.
Peel Ports stated the fee was intended to cover costs of managing leisure activity and dealing with accidents, and warned that a comprehensive review was still underway to assess waterway usage and reserved the right to revisit the issue in future.
The decision represents a victory for recreational boating communities who successfully campaigned against what they saw as an unfair charge on a natural resource, though boat owners remain cautious that the fees could be reintroduced later.
[The photo shows a boat below Erskine Bridge on the Clyde – by Jonathan Mosse]
