Press release
JUDGEMENT CLARIFIES MOORING RIGHTS
16 June 2010
The Court of Session in Scotland has upheld The Crown Estate’s right to license and charge for moorings in Kames Bay on the Isle of Bute and the wider Firth of Clyde area. The Crown Estate owns the seabed to 12 nautical miles and has the lead role for moorings management in Scotland.
The Opinion, presented by Lord Uist on June 4, means that The Crown Estate can now address the unlicensed moorings in Kames Bay and continue managing the limited mooring resource for the benefit of all marine users.
The judge stated: “It seems to me that this dispute about ownership of the seabed in Kames Bay has arisen because of the uninformed opinion of certain individuals that the royal charters granted property in the seabed to the Burgh. This view was based on a misconception, which I trust will now be dispelled.”
Paul Bancks, Coastal Manager for The Crown Estate welcomed the judgment: “We took the case to ensure the issues surrounding the charters were fully investigated and to confirm the principles on which the successful licensing system operates. This clarifies the legal position and means that we can ensure that the system is fair, applying equally to all mooring owners.”
Background
The case came about because of a long held belief of some local people that two ancient charters, one granted by King Robert III of Scotland in 1400 and another granted by King James VI of Scotland in 1584, meant that boats could be moored for free and without regulation in and around Bute.
The Crown Estate has always maintained that this was not the case and that moorings around Bute were no different to the many thousands of other moorings around Scotland that are managed under the licensing system. Working with the local community, we helped establish the Port Bannatyne Moorings Association on the island but a number of moorings remained unlicensed and exhaustive enquiries could not establish who these belonged to.
Rather than simply remove the moorings we asked the Court to rule on whether it was able to take action in order to establish a firm legal basis for doing so.
Lord Uist made a number of conclusions:
- that the concept of permanent moorings as we understand them today did not exist before the eighteenth century and so it cannot have been the intention of Royal Charters to grant the right to lay or use such moorings to the Burgh of Rothesay
- that the Crown did not by the Charters grant any seabed to the Burgh of Rothesay
- that grant by the Charters of ‘free port and harbour’ did not imply the right for vessels to use the port free of charge
- that the Burgh did not itself lay moorings and thus could not have acquired any rights to do so by prescription.
Prior announcements
|
