"Bob Wood" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>2008/9/18 Adrian Stott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>:
>
>> Well, that would fail. Council Tax is, er, a tax. BW's charges are
>> the price of a service.
>
>Your argument falls almost at the first hurdle. BW's charge is a
>'licence' and is payable whether or not you use its services.
Nope.
What the boater buys from BW is the right to use waterways during a
given period. That purchase is discretionary (i.e. you don't have to
buy; you can do something other than boating). You pay your money,
and BW gives you a ticket - like going to the movies. What that
ticket is called ("admission", "licence", etc.) is irrelevant.
Note, that what you are buying is a *right*. It is not connected to
how much you use. BW provides the service of making the waterways
available to you.
A tax, OTOH, is a compulsory payment, extracted from you by the
government whether you want to pay or not. The justification for a
tax (if there is one, other than "we want more of your money"), was
well stated by Monsieur Colbert very many years ago. Something about
getting the maximum number of feathers from a goose while generating
the minimum amount of hissing.
>On that account I saved myself the bother of reading the rest.
There are none so blind ...
Baz Juniper <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>Hmmm. Semantics, surely? Many folk pay a 'service charge' to live
>in a block of flats and this is typically the same year on year
>whether the management company just mows the grass round the building
>or puts a new roof on.
In such arrangements, the amount paid is the average expected over a
long term, and part of the amount paid usually goes into a sinking
fund (no, no, nothing to do with boats!) to pay for infrequent large
repairs etc. The charge is likely to go up over time, though. Much
like BW's charges, actually.
>The question is, whether BW's position as a 'monopoly supplier'
>should constrain its ability to try and generate extra revenue from
>those users it perceives, rightly or wrongly, to be able to pay more
>[widebeamers] or wishes to discourage [continuous moorers].
The answer is "No". Since there are no alternative suppliers, such an
unfettered ability would allow BW to act arbitratily and unreasonably,
and to victimise particular users or classes of user. As it is a
monopoly, it must be required to base its charges on a valid
rationale.
There is no such rationale for charging wider craft more. BW
certainly hasn't given one -- the quote of Simon Salem is simply
invalid.
OTOH, there is such a rationale for charging continuous cruisers more.
If you really want BW to use "willingness to pay", then you must
surely support the idea of BW raising its charges on all boats
(irrespective of beam) to the level that maximises its revenue. That
would surely remove a lot of boats from the waterways. Hey, that
would help deal with lock queues, eh?
All these discussions illustrate well the real problem, which is that
BW has *never* tried to produce a rational system of charges. It
starts from a current dogs breakfast, tinkers around the edges making
the things even more complicated, then tries to force it on the
boaters. And, guess what, things never get better that way.
We need to start again from scratch. We don't need a knee-jerk when
faced with a highly-biased and poorly-written proposal from BWAF.
Adrian
.
Adrian Stott
07956-299966
