Tony Brooks wrote:
> I have just had a response from BW concerning the email I sent them
> about that online quiz.
>
> It appears that it is considered uneconomic to make walkers, cyclists
> and fishermen contribute to BW finances on a simmilar scale to
> boaters and police the annti-social ones,
Not only is it uneconomic, but probably physically impossible.
> so BW with government
> encouragement have decided that boaters are going to pay a lot more
> in license fees - so much for having cheaper boats. If we end up, a
> couple of years down the line with a 100% hike in fees how many of us
> will be able to afford to boat on BW waters?
This argumemt shows the fallacy of the policy of the present CEO of BW to
try to make the organisation independent of Government Grant-in Aid. The
vast majority of users of the waterways are in the categories that can't be
charged directly - not only the direct users that Tony cites (incidentally
he's wrong about fishermen - they do pay if they keep the rules), but also
those who simply enjoy the view from a bridge or the bottom of their garden.
Then there are those who unknowingly benefot from land drainage into the
canals. There is one category that all these users come into -
taxpayers - and it's in that capacity that they can be charged - through
Goverment Grant-in-Aid.
Mike Stevens
nb Felis Catus III - still at the Ware Festival
web-site www.mike-stevens.co.uk
No man is an island. So is Man.
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