Local Democracy Reporting Service
News, East of England
A percentage of boaters on a stretch of waterways have not been paying tolls, an authority has said.
In 2024 the Broads Authority gave 1,708 notices to boat owners on the Norfolk and Suffolk Broads, which is about 14% of the 12,000 vessels that use the waterways each year, according to the Local Democracy Reporting Service.
Since the start of 2025, the Broads Authority has increased its tolls by an average of 5.9% for most craft.
Bill Housden, a senior officer at the authority who is responsible for collecting the fees, said up until a few years ago he would only issue about 400 notices annually but the problem “has spiralled in recent years”.
The tolls were increased for boats on the waterways as part of the authority’s annual review.
John Packman, the chief executive of the authority, said: “We have already had 6,000 people pay their tolls with great alacrity, but others dishonestly do not pay.
“The high cost of that is borne by everybody else.”
The authority said it was also working to tackle the rising number of wrecks and abandoned vessels in the Broads.
Six boats have sunk in the River Yare in the first four months of 2025.
Daniel Thwaites, a navigation committee member on the Broads Authority, said that many boats in poor condition would “likely not have paid toll fees for years”.
The problem has been blamed on a trend of “gifting”, where boats in poor condition have been given to people for free or sold cheaply so that owners avoid having to dispose of them, the Local Democracy Reporting Service added.
A boat amnesty scheme could be implemented later this year to “nip the problem in the bud”, according to Rob Rogers, the director of operations at the Broads Authority.
