The National Bargee Travellers Association has slammed plans to raise licence fees on canals like the Kennet and Avon

[Barneyp]

1 minute ago, Athy said:

Pray tell me, what is the purpose of these canals which they should protect and maintain? 

The original purpose was to transport goods.

The current purpose providing a leisure amenity for the general public. And to a lesser extent preserving historical structures for education etc.

The charity (CRT) exists to look after the waterways, not to look after a very small minority of the population who like messing about in boats.

There are not government funded charities to support other special interest groups - eg climbers, hand gliders, model train enthusiasts, caravanists etc.

Do you seriously believe the government or other people should subsidise your chosen hobby when they don't subsidise other hobbies?

 

[Orwellian]

9 minutes ago, Athy said:

Pray tell me, what is the purpose of these canals which they should protect and maintain? 

There is no single purpose but a wide range of perfectly legitimate ones. Their original purpose was to carry goods but that declined and was largely replaced by leisure uses of various kinds.

[Barneyp]

11 minutes ago, Athy said:

Not so. If I go and sit in a café for an hour and don't buy anything, that doesn't make me a customer.

I agree, but if you sitting in the cafe meant some one else paid the cafe £10 then they would probably treat you as a customer.

And if the cafe's largest source of income was from those who sat there not buying anything but generating money from another source, those people would probably get better treatment than the relatively small number of people who actually order and directly pay for something, who only generate 10% of the cafe income while accounting for a significantly higher proportion of its costs.

[Paul C]

 

D-, see me after class.

[Athy]

1 minute ago, Paul C said:

 

D-, see me after class.

Well spotted./

Please don't call me "D".

[MtB]

47 minutes ago, Athy said:

But in basic moral terms, is it right for a charitable trust to screw as much money as possible out of its customers? Surely, as a charitable trust, their priority should be those customers' best interests, not their own.

 

The morals come a poor second to the needs of CRT to perpetuate* itself. If it doesn't raise enough money to survive, then the canal system and the CRT bureaucracy administering it both enter a death spiral and loss of both is assured. 

 

Therefore it could be argued, CRT has a moral obligation to screw as much money as possible (as you put it) from boaters and all its other customers in order to survive at all, and with it, our canals.

 

* Apologies for my use of this 'Management speke'. Such an abomination of a word.

 

 

 

 

Edited March 18, 2023 by MtB
spelling

[Paul C]

9 hours ago, Goliath said:

Yes and business licenses are not in this consultation.

 

I would have have thought yes a boat would be filled and prepped at the a marina before leaving but they’ve still got use facilities as they move around.
I used a marina the other month for a week while I dumped the boat and I topped up with everything before leaving, charged me batteries etc but it weren’t long before I had to dump some rubbish and empty the toilet.

 

It would be useful to quantify it. For example, did you last 3 days before you serviced water/toilet? A week? A day?

 

9 hours ago, Goliath said:

But I would agree generally a ccer might use the services more, but as we witness a lot of the facilities are possibly disappearing and we will all eventually be charged for them 🤷‍♀️. 
 

 

 

Might, or definitely?

Just now, Athy said:

Well spotted./

Please don't call me "D".

 

You were lucky to scrape a D, I didn't give E or U because you formed the sentences correctly with capitalisation and appropriate punctuation.

23 minutes ago, Athy said:

Not so. If I go and sit in a café for an hour and don't buy anything, that doesn't make me a customer.

 

Do cafés receive DEFRA funding?

[Athy]

13 minutes ago, Barneyp said:

The original purpose was to transport goods.

 

 

Nearly right. The original purpose was to allow the movement of BOATS, which could indeed transport goods or people.  Allowing the movement of boats was, and is, the raison d'etre of a canal.

[Paul C]

50 minutes ago, Athy said:

But in basic moral terms, is it right for a charitable trust to screw as much money as possible out of its customers? Surely, as a charitable trust, their priority should be those customers' best interests, not their own.

 

Somewhere there is a balance between "screwing the customers as hard as possible" and "freezing licence fees, resulting in all but the Llangollen silted up and unnavigable". I think pretty much all successful companies treat their customers fairly, because having return customers is a valid approach to sustainability.

[Athy]

4 minutes ago, Paul C said:

 

 

 

You were lucky to scrape a D, I didn't give E or U because you formed the sentences correctly with capitalisation and appropriate punctuation.

 

 

Quite right too. To communicate in proper English costs no money and little effort; not to do so indicates a sloppy attitude and a lack of respect for the people whom you're addressing.

[Paul C]

Just now, Athy said:

Quite right too. To communicate in proper English costs no money and little effort; not to do so indicates a sloppy attitude and a lack of respect for the people whom you're addressing.

Today's lesson is over! Because it now takes twice as long to type my replies, because I am very concious*  of dropping a Balaerics** in my own grammar/spelling.

 

*See what I did there.
**And there.

[Athy]

12 minutes ago, Barneyp said:

I agree, but if you sitting in the cafe meant some one else paid the cafe £10 then they would probably treat you as a customer.

And if the cafe's largest source of income was from those who sat there not buying anything but generating money from another source, those people would probably get better treatment than the relatively small number of people who actually order and directly pay for something, who only generate 10% of the cafe income while accounting for a significantly higher proportion of its costs.

Do you also talk sense.

Try sitting in your local café or pub for an hour without buying anything. In what way would this encourage other people to come in and spend money? It would not, unless perhaps I were a celebrity, which I'm not.

[Barneyp]

4 minutes ago, Athy said:

Nearly right. The original purpose was to allow the movement of BOATS, which could indeed transport goods or people.  Allowing the movement of boats was, and is, the raison d'etre of a canal.

I disagree, the original purpose was to make money. The boats were charged a toll which was the canals main (only?) source of income.

Now days tolls have been replaced by licenses which contribute a much smaller part of the required revenue. Unless you want a much larger increase in license fees than is currently being proposed you need to accept that boaters are not the main priority for CRT

[MtB]

6 minutes ago, Athy said:

Quite right too. To communicate in proper English costs no money and little effort; not to do so indicates a sloppy attitude and a lack of respect for the people whom you're addressing.

 

Joke: 

 

How do you soothe an upset English teacher?

 

"There their they're, never mined"

 

 

[Alan de Enfield]

9 hours ago, enigmatic said:

Why would the 5000 CCers need to pay as much as the 30000 non CCers?

 

Meet in the middle: how about we pay the average £270 (obviously an underestimate, but it's yours!) per boat difference and get the benefit of a mooring of our choice and the right to bridge hop if we fancy a month or two's holiday in the most congested parts of the network?! 

 

Boaters with a home mooring are contributing a great deal more to C&RTs coffers than CC/CMers.

Take the licence fee out of the equation as both HMs and CM/CC are paying it.

 

HMs, via various routes, are paying 'extra' in the following ways >......................

 

Direct C&RT owned moorings - £8.9m

Via the NAA - £10.8m

 

So ~£20,000,000 contribution by HMs whilst the CM/CC contribution is £0

 

It is about time that each boater paid their fair share, and until tracking, movement and payment per mile is introduced the licence fee is the only way.

 

 

Edit to add - going off at a tangent.

 

Yet again C&RT are spending more money on raising charity income than they receive.

In 2021/22 they actually spend an additional £3.6m against a 'charitable income' that fell by £1.2m

 

Expenditure on raising funds: Increased by £3.6m, mainly due to higher face-to-face activity levels on the towpaths and in offices and increased costs associated with enhanced processes with our boat licences and moorings teams

 

Income from donations and legacies decreased by £5.0m to £6.5m due mainly to £3.8m income from the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme grant in the prior year which wasn’t repeated in the current year

Edited March 18, 2023 by Alan de Enfield

[Barneyp]

3 minutes ago, Athy said:

Do you also talk sense.

Try sitting in your local café or pub for an hour without buying anything. In what way would this encourage other people to come in and spend money? It would not, unless perhaps I were a celebrity, which I'm not.

I didn't say that.

I made an analogy (based on your example of sitting in a cafe but not buying anything).

The point of the analogy was that all the non paying cyclists and walkers who use the canals indirectly generate a huge amount of money for CRT in the form of the government grant.

If all the nonpaying visitors stopped coming to the canals the government would find it very easy to remove their grant.

[magnetman]

Pay as you go is the answer but it is quite complicated to install the hardware.

 

I'm sure the younger generations getting into boating, if there are any, would take to app based boating like a duck to water.

 

It seems a shame there are not any multi billionaires who have a deep fondness and understanding of the canals and could leave a legacy of lets say a billion dollars to sort it out and put their name on it.

 

Surely there must be someone. Igor?

 

 

[Athy]

12 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

Joke: 

 

How do you soothe an upset English teacher?

 

"There their they're, never mined"

 

 

Tea-he.

[MtB]

12 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Boaters with a home mooring are contributing a great deal more to C&RTs coffers than CC/CMers.

Take the licence fee out of the equation as both HMs and CM/CC are paying it.

 

Cue five pages of quibbling by posters unable to grasp this concept....

 

 

[Graham Davis]

58 minutes ago, Athy said:

I realise that your comments are tongue-in-cheek - but walkers nd cyclists can't be classified as "customers" because they don't pay anything. 

You omitted fishermen, a user group not universally loved by other user groups, but who at least make a financial contribution towards the waterways' upkeep.

Customers are anybody who use a facility, whether they have to pay for it or not. Therefore I am a customer when I walk along the Mon & Brecon or any other canal.

[Athy]

22 minutes ago, Barneyp said:

 

The point of the analogy was that all the non paying cyclists and walkers who use the canals indirectly generate a huge amount of money for CRT in the form of the government grant.

 

I think you're clutching at straws there. Canals are kept open to allow the passage of boats. It may be pleasant for people to walk beside them but it has no bearing on their income as far as I'm aware.

[Graham Davis]

54 minutes ago, Athy said:

Not so. If I go and sit in a café for an hour and don't buy anything, that doesn't make me a customer.

Fatuous and stupid comparison!

[MtB]

1 minute ago, Graham Davis said:

Customers are anybody who use a facility, whether they have to pay for it or not. Therefore I am a customer when I walk along the Mon & Brecon or any other canal.

 

Cobblers.

 

customer

noun [ C ]

a person who buys goods or a service:

 

 

https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/customer

 

[magnetman]

I would call someone who walks on the towpath a user rather than a customer.

[Athy]

2 minutes ago, Graham Davis said:

Customers are anybody who use a facility, whether they have to pay for it or not. Therefore I am a customer when I walk along the Mon & Brecon or any other canal.

No, they are not and you are not.         I might enjoy looking in a shop window, but I am not a customer until I go into the shop and buy something.