Racecourse Marina hits top tier with Five Gold Anchor Award

Improvements to facilities and customer service made by the Tingdene Marinas team at Racecourse Marina, on the River Thames in Windsor, was marked in fine style by the presentation of a prestigious Five Gold Anchor Award at the London Boat Show last week.

Racecourse Marina Manager, Neill Walker, receiving the Five Gold Anchor Award from TYHA Chairman, Simon Haigh, with TYHA Manager, Jon White, on the right

The Gold Anchor Scheme is administered by The Yacht Harbour Association (TYHA) and delivered by highly experienced independent auditors, who inspect every detail of marinas, from facilities to processes and customer service. TYHA also mystery shops them and surveys their berth holders prior to issuing a verdict.

The accolade is particularly notable: firstly, because it is Racecourse Marina’s maiden attempt to receive a Gold Anchor Award of any kind; secondly, because it achieved this top ranking at a point where the scheme’s requirements have become enhanced to make them more difficult to meet and thirdly because it is the first River Thames marina so far to be assessed under the more challenging standards.

It’s the perfect way to celebrate a £1m project that has substantially upgraded the facilities and increased the marina’s capacity by 50 per cent, to 262 berths. But the numbers alone don’t tell the whole story, as Racecourse Marina Manager, Neill Walker, explains:

“We’ve transformed the marina right across the board since we arrived two years ago. Not just with our brand-new pontoon system, but also in other important areas such as offering a better crane service, training our staff to offer excellent service to our berth holders, providing designated car parking, nicer landscaping and security gates that were designed bespoke to our requirements.

“Some of our customers have been at Racecourse since the day the marina was built and they’ve noticed and appreciated the differences. That is reward enough, but the Five Gold Anchor Award has also been a real boost for our team. We’ve been completely hands-on with the improvements that have been made here and this accolade is a great endorsement of our efforts to not only meet, but exceed, the challenging standards laid down by TYHA.”

Speaking after the awards ceremony at the London Boat Show, TYHA Manager Jon White commented on the importance of the award:

“Racecourse Marina has clearly invested significantly in its infrastructure and is very focused on ensuring that its customers have a high-quality experience. We welcome the very positive actions of the team to achieve the Five Gold Anchor Award alongside other marinas within the Tingdene group who also use the Gold Anchor scheme as a framework for continual improvement.

“Racecourse has achieved this prestigious accreditation at a time when Gold Anchor standards have been elevated from an already challenging level to reflect the
growing standards within marinas globally. Neill Walker was extremely helpful and worked his way through an agreed action plan to ensure that they hit the required standards for customer service, facilities, procedures and services.”

The Five Gold Anchor flag will now proudly fly over a state-of-the-art, destination marina for berth-holders, right in the heart of the River Thames and close by Windsor. With boat sales and boatyard facilities close to hand and the excellent GOGOS waterfront restaurant and cocktail bar overlooking the boats and their new pontoon berths, Racecourse Marina is expecting an excellent and busy year ahead.