Report on docks’ future finally published two years after being written

A newly re-elected Green Party councillor has questioned why it has taken two years to publish a report looking into the operations of Bristol’s docks.

The Bristol Harbour Operations Review was written by consultants who charged Bristol City Council £95,000 in November 2021.

But despite having the date of May 2022 on its front cover, the report by Dorset-based specialist maritime consultancy Fisher Associates has only now appeared on the council’s website.

Former Bristol mayors Marvin Rees and George Ferguson were ultimately responsible for the harbour during their time in office.

Hotwells & Harbourside councillor, Patrick McAllister, told Bristol24/7: “It is a shame that this report has been withheld from the public and councillors for so long.

“It was finalised in May 2022 but only released in the past few days, at a time when councillors and the public were distracted by elections.

“While there are certain elements of the report that are out of date it is still an impressive body of work.

“I look forward to the new Harbour Committee – which I hope to be a member of – openly and democratically reviewing and building upon the recommendations within it to improve Bristol’s harbour for all those who live, work and play upon it.”

The Floating Harbour is one of the jewells in Bristol’s crown – photo: Martin Booth

The Bristol Harbour Operations Review was commissioned by the city council in order to adopt national best practice across a number of areas at a time when the council spend more maintaining the docks than is recouped from mooring fees and other charges.

The report says that the council “needs now to recognise the dichotomy between what it must do to ensure that the harbour can continue to function, and its current purpose and use”, recommending that more staff are employed to carry out repairs and maintenance in order to prevent “highly undesirable consequences”.

The report adds: “Nobody really knows what the harbour’s raison d’être is, or what it should be trying to achieve in the short or long term, nor how it should be trying to do it.”

It is also unknown whether the harbour is fully compiant with the Port Marine Safety Code due to the council’s decision to withdraw from membership of trade organisations such as the British Ports Association, which “exposes the Council and its officers to potential action if proved to be non-compliant with the Code”.

Some sections of the report are heavily redacted – image: Fisher Associates

Fisher Associates say that their most important key finding is the “huge backlog” of maintenance, but the monetary amount of “urgent” work required – a figure called “highly concerning” – is one of several areas of the report that has been redacted.

One published figure is that the city council receives approximately £1.7m per year from the harbour but that they are missing out on around £1.2m more “due to income from car parks being allocated elsewhere, and property and moorings being let at concessionary rates for various reasons”.

One of the most heavily redacted sections of the report is the ‘lost income allocation’. This appears to be a list of concessions but none are visible.

“These concessions may have been given with worthy intent, and it may be rational for BCC to do this, if the economic value to the City from the assets concessioned exceeds the opportunity cost of low income,” says the report.

“However, BCC should not on the one hand require the harbour to be financially self-sufficient and on the other hand offer use of its property and infrastructure to customers free of charge, without transparent allocation of value to the harbour.”

The Floating Harbour has gone from being a working port into a leisure destination – photo: Bristol Archives

The review concludes that the council “has a significant challenge ahead if it wishes to create an environment in which its harbour can flourish and optimise its contribution to the socio-economic fabric of the city”.

Key recommendations include forming a Harbour Management Committee with a membership comprised 50 per cent of councillors or council representatives and 50 per cent external co-opted appointees; as well as establishing a single Harbour Stakeholder Group which the Harbour Management Committee should consult with, “having the interests of the harbour stakeholders at the forefront”.

Another key recommendation is that “to support financial self-sustainability, the council should address the current tariff, consider any new fees and charges, credit the harbour with revenues from car parks, mooring and lease concessions to its cultural partners (including those to BCC itself), whilst reviewing any commercial leases that it has”.

This money “will remain within the BCC family, but the value will be recognised as being generated by and attributed to the harbour”.

A council source told Bristol24/7 that part of the reason for the delay in publishing the report was due to “quite a lot of back and forth between the authors and officers on detail and definitions” which “took a fair while due to various officers needing to be involved at different points”.

The source said that the redactions in the final report relate to items that could be commercially sensitive and are “fairly standard for such reports”, with the recommendations due to be considered by the new Harbour Management Committee once that is established.

Main photo: Martin Booth

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