APPENDIX 5
Memorandum submitted by Catamaran Cruisers
Ltd
Catamaran Cruisers Ltd (CCL) operates daily
licensed scheduled leisure and tourism (sight-seeing) services
on the river Thames, concentrating particularly on a route between
Embankment pier (formally known as Charing Cross pier), Tower
pier and Greenwich pier. (In addition, under the trade mark "Bateaux
London", the company is also the largest provider of public
restaurant cruises on the river.)
Since being granted the exclusive licence, by
the Port of London Authority (PLA) in 1993, to operate the sight-seeing
service until 2007, CCL has so far invested £8.0 million
(rising to £10.5 million by 2002) in new facilities, boats
and services. CCL employs 147 people and carries 420,000 sight-seeing
passengers per annum (plus a further 80,000 passengers per annum
on its restaurant cruises). The Thames attracts over two million
visitors per annum and is one of the major tourist attractions
in London.
On 1 April 1999, responsibility for the operation
of the key passenger piers and services on the river will transfer
from the PLA to London River Services (LRS), a newly formed subsidiary
of London Transport (LT). This coincides with a new initiative
by the Government to facilitate transport services to the Millennium
Dome at Greenwich; with the long-term aim of establishing new
viable water-bus services on the Thames.
Whilst the need to transport visitors to the
Dome is obviously of national importance, past attempts to establish
water-bus services eg Thamesline and RiverBus have failed, despite
receiving considerable operating subsidies during their existence.
When RiverBus was running, CCL estimates that it lost between
50,000 to 75,000 passengers per annum (roughly 20 per cent of
its business at the time).
LRS appears to be applying fundamentally transport
orientated planning protocols to its proposed management of the
river leisure and tourism services, under the terms of the London
Transport Act. Without sympathetic, informed and experienced tourism
trained management in LRS, the risk is that in seeking to re-introduce
river bus services, the already successful and important leisure
and tourism services may be unnecessarily and unfairly undermined.
A combination of:
— LRS choosing to apply the regulations
of the London Transport Act, without assessing their suitability
to leisure and tourism services on the river, and
— the perceived need to make any new
river bus service successful at all costs,
may prejudice the level and rate of return on CCL's
investment and possibly lead to withdrawal of the company from
the business.
CCL was within a week of being forced to withdraw
when the last river bus service failed in 1993.
CCL needs some confirmation that past agreements
and licences will be honoured and that the establishment of any
new river bus service(s) will not be made at the expense of the
continued successful operation and development of leisure and
tourism services on the river Thames.
November 1998
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