Most of the people out enjoying a sunny Saturday in Gunwharf Quays in Portsmouth, Sutton Harbour in Plymouth or Sovereign Harbour in Eastbourne probably haven’t arrived by sea. Instead, the majority of visitors to these busy marinas will be landlubbers, through and through.
Yes, they might like looking at boats but really, they’re here because marinas are nice places to walk around and explore or sit outside a waterside restaurant with a chilled glass of white.
“They’re not just boatyards anymore,” says Andrew Lewis from Premier Marinas, which owns and operates ten marinas on the south coast. “Marinas are very much communities in their own right and great places to enjoy being by the water, even if you haven’t got a boat.”
The UK has around 560 marinas and the sector is thriving in the wake of a post-pandemic boom in boating and marine tourism. Berth occupancy levels are high and millions of pounds of investment is being poured in to improve infrastructure at sites up and down the country.
But linked to this is a growing realisation that marinas are the anchor of
