As the number of leisure boats is increasing in Norway, the number of available berths throughout the country is decreasing. This worries the Royal Norwegian Boating Association (KNBF).
There has been a record increase in leisure boats in the last two years, and there are now over 1 million leisure boats in Norway. But at the same time, the construction demand for the areas in the beach zone is intensifying over large parts of the country.
“I am very worried about boating with the development we see in many municipalities nowadays. Our politicians must arrange for more berths on the water and land so that not only a select few in society can afford to have a boat,” Stig Hvide Smith, Secretary-General of the KNBF, noted.
Berths and boat storage places are threatened in Oslo, Bergen, Trondheim, Tønsberg and Nøtterøy, Arendal, Drammen, Bodø, Hamar, and the Mjøs region.
Big challenge
“The pressure on the coastal areas is extreme, and it is a big challenge for small and large boat associations,” Hvide Smith added in a press release.
Most boating associations are run on a voluntary basis and on municipal land. The KNBF believes that removing access to the sea as a recreational area threatens the right of public access and a traditional culture along Norway’s long coastline.
The waiting time for a berth in Oslo, for example, is now between 12 and 20 years in the various associations. And more berths will disappear in the future due to the municipality’s plans to build homes close to the sea.
Source: © NTB Scanpix / #Norway Today / #NorwayTodayNews
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