"bty465680" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >I think the whole idea of BW 'Auctioning' moorings is disgusting. Is >this not just a way of forcing more people on low incomes off the >canals by denying them any possibilty of obtaining a mooring, by way >of waiting list or otherwise? > >Most of us on low incomes cannot afford marinas and for onlin >moorings now to be sold off to the highest bidder forces us not to be >able to obtain the mooring that the licence dictates we should have. > >This will result in fewer people on low incomes having licences,
This raises some important questions. 1. SHOULD BOATING BE MADE FINANCIALLY MORE AVAILABLE TO LOW-INCOME PEOPLE? There are lots of things low-income people can't afford. Quite a few of them have trouble even with necessities such as food and shelter. So, if there is additional government money available to help these people, what should it be spent on? I guess that most of the people concerned put recreation, let along boating, well down on their lists of priorities. What do you think their answer would be if they were asked whether they would rather have better housing or more boating? We know that the government already has political difficulty with spending more money on the waterways rather than on more essential things. Nevertheless, availability of recreation certainly brightens life, and no-one would want those on low-incomes to have lives of unremitting misery. But if recreation is to be made more available to those people, I imagine only a tiny minority of them would choose boating as their most desired form of recreation. So, if there is to be more government spending on recreation for low-income people, why should the government decide to spend it on the waterways? That seems simply arrogant to me. Why not let the people concerned decide for themselves what form of recreation they wish to undertake? Not only that, but boating is a relatively expensive form of recreation. Government support money for more recreation for the poor could surely be more effectively spent (i.e. provide more recreation experience) on making less costly activities more available. Or maybe the money should be spent on polo, car racing, etc.? On that basis, I think that lobbying for government support for more boating for the worse off is unlikely to have much success. 2. IF BOATING IS TO BE MADE MORE FINANCIALLY AVAILABLE TO LOW-INCOME PEOPLE, HOW SHOULD THIS BE DONE? However, let's assume that it *is* government policy to help those on low incomes go boating, and that it has found some money to spend achieving that. How should that money be spent to best effect? Reducing the price of boating (e.g. navigation charges, moorings, inspections) is a bad approach, because that reduces the price for everyone irrespective of his income. By doing this, the government would in effect subsidise every boater, including those who are able to afford market prices. The result is that BW's grant would have to be increased a very large amount to compensate it for its reduced revenue from the pricing cuts, and we all know the chances of that. Also, if the prices become unrelated to costs and the market, the logic and economic basis of BW's management will be destroyed. Instead of making sound financial decisions, it would have to make arbitrary bureaucratic ones. This would be sure to result in more inefficiencies, so even the available money would not be spend as effectively. It would make much more sense for the government to give money directly to the low-income people, to help them pay the market prices related to boating. In this way, less government money would be needed (as there will be no subsidies to the better-off), and there would be no need to impose arbitrary pricing with all the problems that always brings. So, I think the questions of how moorings are priced, and of whether (and, if so, how) those on low incomes should be financially aided to go boating, need to be dealt with separately. If you run them together, you won't get good answers for any of them. >BW should be encouraging new boaters, not forcing the canals to be >populated by the rich in their shiney new narrow boats. BW does encourage new boaters. But boating is a relatively costly activity, that many just can't justify spending their money one, and that many find doesn't give them as much pleasure as other, less expensive, activities. The trend is towards two weeks in a sunny Greek resort, as opposed to two weeks on a boat in the (often grey) Midlands. >If a mooring becomes available and is auctioned off, do all other >moorings on the same strip then increase to that level the following >year? No. BW has said that it will use the prices obtained at auction as only one of the pieces of information it will consider when setting the prices for mooring renewals. Moreover, it has said it will phase in over several years any large price increases on renewal that may result. >Have a fixed mooring cost per foot, with no minimum, and do short >term licences on a pro-rata basis, not on the nearly-as-dear as one >year basis they are now. Bring back the monthly 10 month split, not >the big lump at the beginning, it really hurts us on a low income. I thought most of that is already in place? Adrian Adrian Stott 07956-299966
