>Firstly (and cheekily!), all (or at least most) other users pay for the >canals via their taxes which are to a large extent related to ability to >pay.
That is just an artefact of the way the waterways are funded now. If, for example, the annual grant that now forms the public contribution were replaced with a capital endowment, in the form of a the long-term loan of revenue-producing real estate assets already owned by the government, then it goes away. * I disagree with the endowment system because the link to ability to pay preserves a link between 'emotional utility' and economic utility (as I defined them in a previous posting, and assuming the canals are a common good). Assuming (for the sake of argument) that the ability for emotional enjoyment or upset is not related to wealth, a stroll along the towpath through (say) Regent's Park is equally pleasurable to rich or poor. However, if they were told that it had cost £1 of their taxes per towpath walker they might react differently; but if told it has cost 0.00001% of their taxes this would probably seem negligible to both. >Secondly, in a period of transition where a government organisation is >greatly increasing its prices from what might or might not be argued to >be too low a base, it is reasonable to help those who find themselves in >difficulties by tweaking the pricing policy where possible - not by >means testing or anything difficult like that, but if charging per metre >or metre^2 rather than per boat gives a help to those to whom the >increases are giving most difficulty it seems reasonable to act in that >manner. <snip> Fudging the price(s) of boating would be a very bad way of doing it. IMHO, the best way would be to give those folk money, so they can pay the same prices as everyone else (and so that everyone else doesn't get the undeserved benefit of the fudged prices). You can't wiggle out of this question by saying that this approach might be "difficult". Doing something dumb just because it is easy is not a sensible policy. Of course, the problem you then face is that (I suspect) quite a lot of those folk would take the money and spend it on something other than boating. People have an annoying way of setting their priorities differently from how you (or I) might want them to. * This could be avoided by targeting the subsidy at specific activities which were perceived to be of general emotional utility - in the previous posting I suggested sheep farming or maintaining historic boats as examples. >Thirdly, I believe that cinemas do have a crude means of charging by >ability to pay - cheaper seats for children, students, I believe that is not an example of social policy, but actually a marketing tool. BW has considered the same thing -- by introducing lower prices for "new boaters". Trouble is, it has come up with no way to identifying who those people are that avoids the break being available to those (less desirable) "old boaters". * Given that historically, boaters have tended to start with cheap, small or old boats, licensing systems which relate to size favour such boats (a system related to cabin length, as I posted some years ago, by making long swims 'free', favours well-shaped hulls which cause less wash damage, as well as historic boats in carrying condition). Council tax is related to house value and a similar scheme could be applied to the sale value of boats. Any flat-rate scheme would penalise small and low-value boats and probably incur costs to BW in removing abandoned boats of this type. * As I suggested in a previous posting, 'old boaters' may be better guardians of the history of the system, in the interests of the majority of non-boating users. Sean
