"Mike Stevens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >On Monday, December 11, 2006 9:16 AM [GMT+1=CET], >Will Chapman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > >> Mike Stevens wrote: >> >>> (b) the cost of enforcement, which will probably swallow up most of >>> the revenue gained >>> >> I'm not with you on that point Mike. Enforcement of what? > >Enforcing the rules - checking boat fuel tanks for the wrong kind of >diesel, as they do for cars. I guess it will ne mainly coastal marinas they >hit because that's where the most pleasure boat diesel is used. Also >certifying all the new pumps that will be needed. It may well be that in >the first year the enforcement costs will outweigh the revenue.
As I've recently posted elsewhere, enforcement will be effective and inexpensive. Just look at how it has done in France (where red has been illegal for pleasure craft propulsion for years) now. Every now and then, the gendarmes show up at some basin or other, and check each boat moored there. Not the tanks, but the filter bodies just before the injectors. If they find someone with red who can't show (with receipts and appropriate log entries) that he bought it in Belgium (the equivalent here will be "before the end of 2006) they wheel out the guillotine. Most French riparian fuel suppliers won't sell red to pleasure craft anyway, for fear of the chop falling on them. Those that do tend to phone les flics afterwards, so you find them waiting on the towpath for you a couple of km down the canal. You had better be able to show you have bought it only for heating or generating. The fines are high. They don't need to check every boat on the waterways. Just a few, pour encourager les autres. *Very* cost effective AIUI. Adrian Adrian Stott 07956-299966
