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St Helier Boat Owners Association (StHBOA) submits its response to the draft decision in respect of Ports of Jersey (PoJ) Pricing Framework issued by JCRA, dated 20 June 2024.
To see the full letter of response please follow this link. Port Regulatory Review Response
As reported on 17th June 2024, the Jersey Association of Boat Owners Associations lobbied the Guernsey, Herm and Sark authorities with a view to easing the travel restrictions for Jersey boats visiting the islands. We are pleased to report that Jersey boats are now allowed to travel directly to Herm and Sark after completing an online form. The detailed email and links to the online form can be found below:
Subject : Concession for direct
Herm/Sark travel for Jersey resident boatowners
Good
afternoon,
Following our
meeting with the Committee for Home Affairs, as advised we have been
working on a solution for Jersey resident boatowners to travel from Jersey
directly into Herm or Sark without first attending at an approved port. I
am pleased to inform you that we have granted a concession for this travel
starting with immediate effect and operating on a trial basis until the end of
the year. We will also be conducting compliance checks to ensure the
requirements are being adhered with properly.
This
concession is only available to Jersey boatowners resident in Jersey and only for travel from Jersey directly into Herm or Sark. If
you are coming from anywhere else from outside the Bailiwick i.e. France, UK,
you must arrive into an approved port in Guernsey or Alderney as the concession
is not valid for this travel.
If you have
any goods to declare when arriving in the Bailiwick, this must be documented on
the online form, and you may be requested to attend at an approved port.
I have attached the direct link below to the form which is found on our website.
https://gov.gg/article/201666/Local-and-Jersey-Residents-Pleasure-Craft-Arrivals
Otherwise, follow the link and instruction below:
The form can
be accessed by going to www.gov.gg/gba and
following the link for “Private vessels and aircraft” and then the link
for “Declaring passengers and goods – private vessels.” At the
bottom of the page on the right there is a green box entitled “Local and
Jersey Residents Pleasure Craft Arrivals.”
As part of
the trial, we would also appreciate any initial feedback and then we will be in
touch again at the end of the season.
Kind regards
Emma Emma
Webb Head
of Customs & Excise Division
Guernsey
Customs and Immigration BSc (Hons), CMgr MCMI
Restrictions on Jersey
private boats visiting Sark and Herm
STHBOA,
as part of the Jersey Association of Boat Owners Associations, has been
lobbying Guernsey Border Authority, the Guernsey Home Affairs Committee, Sark
Pleas and the Herm management company to remove or ease the restrictions on
private Jersey boats visiting Sark and Herm.
We have been advised that the Home Affairs Committee have agreed to change the
requirements on a trial basis, and GBA are working up the new procedures. We
have just requested an idea of when these might be released.
We have heard through informal channels that this may involve the electronic
submission of some form of transit report, though we do not know this
officially or for certain.
Once the new procedure requirements are published we will communicate these
through our website and FaceBook page
The Jersey Association of Boat Owners Associations
(JABOA), of which STHBOA is a participant, has written to the Guernsey Border
Agency (GBA) and the Committee for Home Affairs of the States of Guernsey, requesting
that border restrictions be waived for Jersey private boats to visit Sark and
Herm. At present the GBA is requiring all boats visit St Peter Port and lodge a
customs form in the yellow post box in the marina before proceeding to Sark or
Herm. It is our view that this is disproportionate to the risks
to Guernsey's immigration and customs regime and may even be in contravention
of the provisions of the Common Travel Area.
We will keep you updated of progress in this dialogue.
Please read our letter by using this link
Good news for international boaters ! Thanks to a new protocol signed between the Directorate General of Customs and Excise Duties (DGDDI), the National Federation of Border Police (DNPAF), and the French Federation of Marinas (FFPP), our non-PPF marinas now have permission to welcome boats coming from abroad !
Here are the Links to the Eskale d' Armor procedures including,
the Official Press Release, the two options you have for entry, the Official Form to be completed and the list and contact email addresses for eligible Marinas..
StHBOA responds to Ports of Jersey's latest move to enforce parking charges on South Pier. You can review the Ports of Jersey Notice of intent and our initial response by clicking on the links below.
St Helier Boat Owners Response to the Increase in Mooring Fees 2024
In late November 2023 Ports of Jersey (PoJ) announced that mooring fees
would rise by 11.1% from 1 January 2024. This came on top of a fee increase of
over 10% in 2023.
Phil James organised an impromptu meeting for anybody
with an interest in the matter, which was well attended by people from all the
boat owning associations on the island.
At that meeting a grouping of
volunteers to represent the different boat owning associations agreed to work
together to lobby PoJ to reconsider the plan. A comprehensive rebuttal of the
arguments, statistics and inflation rates used in the PoJ announcement was sent
to PoJ. An exchange of correspondence with PoJ took place, and
the working party decided to raise a formal issue with the Jersey Competition
Regulatory Authority (JCRA) which has regulatory oversight for the conduct and
pricing policy of PoJ.
Phil James and Dave Garland, who had spearheaded the
initiatives to engage with PoJ and JCRA, joined the Committee of STHBOA at the
AGM on January 9 2024. The Harbour Master, Bill Sadler and CFO of PoJ, Jenny
Marek Murray, attended an open meeting immediately after the AGM to put forward
their rationales and justifications for the fee increase, and to hear the views
and take questions from those attending. At the end of the meeting they
undertook to consider revising the fee increase.
They had a follow up meeting with a sub committee of
SHBOA in mid January where they said they were willing to defer the increase by
3 months. They made it clear that any further reductions had been ruled out by
the CEO and Board of PoJ.
Whilst this was not as big a drop in the increase as we
had lobbied and argued for, it was clear that it did represent a benefit for
the majority of boatowners in St Helier, although it is important to highlight
that despite promises that the change would benefit all boat owners, those with
annual contracts in the old harbour, and the outlying harbours, with mid year
renewals have not actually received any benefit from the concession. Not withstanding that, we estimate that the value of the
concession through the deferral of the increase, has saved the boat owning
community around £100,000.
We believe that PoJ would not have offered the concession
without the resolute, carefully constructed and managed dialogue that was
undertaken by those from the boat owning community who worked on this. The correspondence trail on the saga is set out below :-
- announcement of fee increase by PoJ
- letter to PoJ rejecting the premises used to justify the increase dated 7th December 2023se
- letter of response from Harbour Master dated 18th December 24
- further letter to Harbour Master dated 21st December 24
- letter from JABOA to the Jersey Competition Regulatory Authority dated 22nd December 24.
- interim response from JCRA
- final response from JCRA dated 1st February, 24.
The issue of the sharp increase in mooring fees announced
by Ports of Jersey at the end of 2023 brought the community of boat owners
together to mount a campaign to lobby PoJ and the Jersey Consumer Regulatory
Authority to reconsider their plans. There are a number of different boat owners associations
representing the boat owning community of Jersey, and the associations decided
it would be beneficial if we banded together to be able to present a united
front on boating related matters in the future. As a consequence, StHBOA has entered a Memorandum of
Understanding to form an advocacy body called Jersey Association of Boat Owners
Associations (JABOA) with the following
groups :-
~ Bonne Nuit BOA
~ Bouley Bay BOA
~ Gorey BOA
~ Greve de Lecq BOA
~ La Rocque
BOA
~Rozel BOA
~ St Aubins BOA
JABOA will represent the interests of all the boat owners
in matters that affect.
Following the campaign that led to the deferral of the
increase in berthing fees, JABOA is about to initiate a campaign to the
Guernsey Border Authority on the new restrictions on private boats visiting
Sark and Herm.
Nobody wants to complain for the sake of it, however, sometimes it becomes necessary. It is not possible for your Association to deal with all the myriad of things that can go wrong. Whilst we welcome you sending us details and on most occasions we will take the matter up for discussion, it is important that you also send your complaints directly to Ports of Jersey. You will find the correct link on our Useful Links page, however for good measure we are repeating the process here. The complaints procedure on the Ports of Jersey Website is somewhat hidden. The easiest way to find the correct form and email address is to enter 'complaints' in their Website search box, however if you click on the following link you will be taken directly to their complaints procedure page:
Complaint Procedure For your convenience we have prepared a pro-forma email should you wish to utilise it. The proforma merely adds the correct email address and offers you the opportunity to share your complaint with us. Please access with this link Complaint Email
The Subject will be pre filled as 'Complaint', however please modify to give better detail. You will find that we have entered our own email address to the copy section. Please delete this, should you not wish to share your complaint with our members.
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