Ashwood Marina

In the late 1950s, Peter Rose, a canal enthusiast and Scout leader, had a eureka moment while on a scout adventure canoeing along the local canals when he discovered an abandoned basin. Peter foresaw that the future of canals would revolve around leisure use, and he recognised the need for marinas where users could moor and maintain their boats. He subsequently sought to purchase the basin.

Two years later, Ashwood Marina was established near Kingswinford on the Staffordshire & Worcester canal in the West Midlands, with their first-ever mooring being Joanna, a newly converted houseboat.

Today, Ashwood Marina boasts over 120 berths, storage ashore, a boatyard with lifting facilities, onsite boat builders for new boat construction, fit-outs, and refitting. Ashwood offers additional services, including brokerage, chandlery, and pitches for static and touring caravans.

Ashwood Marina has remained a privately owned, family-run business since the 1960s. The third generation joined the business in 2019 and sought to modernise current systems with a marina management system to improve efficiency by reducing duplicate workloads.

The team at Ashwood Marina shared, “We knew our current systems were outdated and caused duplication of work across different staff members, which could result in errors that cost the business lost revenue.

We found Harbour Assist online and read the reviews; we were impressed with their sales approach, which was tailored to our needs. As a small business, we thought they might consider us too small to work with, but their attention and service have been exactly what we wanted.”

“We found the onboarding process much easier than anticipated, and as we continue to get used to the new system, we appreciate how easy it is to get ongoing support when we encounter problems or go wrong! Harbour Assist makes us look much more professional in front of our customers,” the team added.

To find out more about Ashwood Marina, click here.

How can we help your business?

If you’d like to talk about how Harbour Assist can help you stay in control and work more efficiently, email Nick Gill to start a conversation.