Maldon district councillors have voted to recommend a 50 per cent reduction in wharfage fees for the Thames sailing barges at Hythe Quay for the 2021/22 financial year.

The proposal will now need to be ratified by the full council. However, the move was not supported by all councillors at the meeting of Maldon District Council's Strategy and Resources Committee tonight (Thursday, 28 January) with six councillors voting for the reduction and four abstaining.

Some councillors at the meeting raised the issue of the barges having already enjoyed a discount and the "uneven handedness" for other businesses at the quay and nearby, including the kiosks. The matter of dredging to maintain access to the quay and how that should be paid for was also raised.

A report submitted to the members of the committee put forward three options:

-keeping the fees at the current rate

-reducing the fees by 25 per cent

-reducing the fees by 50 per cent.

Currently, each Thames sailing barge pays an annual fee of £3,575, equal to £328 per month. A 25 per cent reduction would see that move down to £2,681 per year or £246 per month, while 50 per cent off will take that to £1,787 a year or £164 per month.

"These beautiful vessels that have brought so much to our town are under threat."

Speaking for a 50 per cent reduction in fees for the year ahead, Independent Councillor Kevin Lagan, a former barge operator himself, said: "Maldon is synonymous with the Thames sailing barges and these historic and very beautiful vessels that have donned our paperwork, our crests, and have brought so much to our town, are under threat.

"This has been a terrible situation with Covid that has impacted everything and especially the business owners and the Trusts that are trying to operate there."

Cllr Lagan added that though while the loss of income to the council from the reduction seemed "a lot of money" to be taking from the council's budget considering current pressures, one barge had left the quay last year because of an increase in fees and one had been put on blocks to avoid them.

He made the point that further barges leaving Hythe Quay would therefore reduce the potential income from fees.

Citing the council's 'Maldon Tourism Strategy' document, taken from the authority's website, Cllr Lagan added that with regard to a previous 2.96

million visitors a year and £4.1million income from tourism, the strategy concluded that the town's "product includes the barges and the quay and the historic quaintness of the town."

"The barges can up and off at any time."

Conservative Councillor Maddie Thompson questioned whether the Thames barges already have a discount on wharfage fees. This was checked by a council officer who said that this amounted to 40 per cent.

Cllr Thompson added: "Of course I support the barges, but they aren't the only thing that makes Maldon and I think I would be very happy to continue the discount as it is, but it does concern me because of the unfairness to other businesses.

"The thing about the barges is they can up and off at any time and I've been on the council long enough to remember being bitten by The Dawn, which as a council we sunk large amounts of money and massive amounts of officer time into and after that it moved to Kent.

"At any time they might have a business need to move and I would have thought that the problem with the barges and the quay at Maldon would have been the lack of dredging, which I know is a whole other story. I understand they have more and more difficulty every passing year accessing the quay at the times they would like to because of the lack of depth of water there."

Fears over "creating a precedent"

This point was agreed by Conservative Councillor Michael Helm, who added: "If we reduce the fee by 50 per cent, who's going to pay for the dredging? Are we going to be expected to pay for that as well?

"We need to support all the tourist operations in Maldon because they're all important."

And Conservative Councillor Mark Durham said: "Tourism is absolutely vital to the district and clearly the barges are synonymous with Maldon district and it would be a great shame to lose them.

"But I am a little bit nervous about creating a precedent just for the barges. If we reduce the fee for the barges, you have the kiosks, for example, and the people in Prom Park who have suffered in this pandemic equally as much as the barges and lots of other businesses.

"It would be very difficult to justify cutting the wharfage fees down for them and then not doing the same for the kiosks and any of the other services that we've got. I'm not trying to be a killjoy and I'm not trying to make life difficult for the barge owners, but I think by taking this step it's a little bit un - it's not even-handed."

It also emerged in the meeting that the owners of some of the barges using Hythe Quay would have been eligible for pandemic business grants if they pay business rates, but officers could not confirm which barges had made applications or the status of these.