A bid by Cam Punting Ltd to challenge a ban on punt tours from Garret Hostel Lane has been thrown out of court.

The Cam Conservators, the statutory authority for Cambridge, who are responsible for maintaining the river Cam, imposed the ban in April of last year.

Punt licenses will only be issued to operators working from six “fit for purpose” stations, namely Granta Mill Pond, Mill Pit West and Mill Pit East,Trinity College, Quayside and La Mimosa. This means independent punters will no longer be able to operate from Garret Hostel Lane.

The ban was the result of fears about the safety of the river frontage at Garret Hostel Lane and concerns about the congestion caused by punts being pushed out into one of the busiest sections of the river.

Mr Judge Mitting, sitting at the High Court, ruled that the Cam Conservators were acting within their rights and expressed his own concern at the “chaos” on the Cam, describing the challenge as "untenable and unarguable".

Luke Wygas, the barrister acting on behalf of the Conservators, argued that Garret Hostel Lane “was being used by commercial punt operators to load and unload passengers when it was not safe to do so”.

The judge agreed that the restrictions had been introduced because of an “increase in the number of accidents involving punts” caused by “congestion on certain parts of the Backs”.

His ruling, made on the 17th January, clears the way for the prosecution of punters who ignore this ban and continue to operate from Garret Hostel Lane.

Mr Justice Mitting, himself a Cambridge graduate, expressed his surprise on learning that there are now up to 200 punts on the river, remembering that there only used to be one punting station operated by a firm called Scudamores. He asked Mr Wygas, “Are they still there?” to which the barrister responded, “They are, and thriving.”

The ban has led to concerns that companies such as Scudamores, which operates from three stations in the city centre, will have a virtual monopoly on the river as independent punters will have nowhere to moor their punts.

The general manager of Scudamores, Mr Rod Ingersent, who was a Conservator himself throughout 2012, the year when the ban was proposed, declined to comment on the issue.

The court ruling on the ban is the latest in a long line of events that show that punting isn’t all about messing about on the river. In 2006 Cambridge News reported that Scudamores had bought up its main rivals, Tyrells, making it the only punt company on the busy quayside. In the summer of 2008 the council banned independent punters from using the station at Jesus Green and in 2010 Scudamores was granted a long-term lease of Quayside, a situation that independent punter Sam Matthews told Cambridge News at the time was “laughable”. 

The murky waters of the punting tradition in Cambridge received attention from the national press in 2009 after two of Mr Matthews’ boats were found sawn through from top to bottom as part of what The Guardian described as ‘punt wars’ between rival operators.