What news on the Rialto?

After such a mild spring, what a slow start to the season, with the wettest drought on record and a cold and inclement double Bank Holiday for the Jubilee! This is worrying for the Harbour: for the last couple of years, at least we had a good early part of the season before a let-down in August. This year we’ll have to hope that August will save us. Running a Harbour (like farming) is just so weather-dependent.

Nevertheless (and to use a Biblical reference), the writing is on the wall. Boating is changing. To start with, increases in fuel prices mean fewer big motor yachts. Second, there seems to be a lull (to put it no higher) in family yachting: instead there are more 40-something men and women, often en route from the Solent to the Scillies – and this manifests itself in fewer visitors in August than in September or October. This has important implications for how the Harbour is run: do you aim for the new trade, or try to encourage the families back? And, anyway, is it better not to have the Harbour jam-packed in August?

Good and bad news on the water quality front. The good news is that last year North Sands and Mill Bay, as well as South Sands, complied with the EU water quality Guideline standards. The Harbour’s water quality remains excellent and we must keep it that way. The less good news is that, as a result of cuts or disinterest or whatever, local authorities, including SHDC, are no longer making as many Blue Flag applications. So, for instance, Bigbury doesn’t have a Blue Flag this year, apparently because nobody asked for one. As Salcombe is one of the only harbours in the country where you can bathe on clean, golden sandy beaches within the shelter of the harbour, we must play to our strengths and make sure that we can keep the Blue Flag flying. The other bit of bad (or is it good?) news is that recently South West Water was prosecuted by the Environment Agency for sewage spills in 2011 and, following a guilty plea, was fined around £32,000.

We have heard that Dartmouth Steam Railway and River Boat Company won’t be running the Rivermaid any longer. The company is part of the McAlpine Group and, on the quays of Totnes and Dartmouth, is rumoured to have ambitions to run all the steamers between Torquay and Salcombe. So we wait to see their next move – and what will happen to the Rivermaid this year. What news on the Rialto?