On 9 May 2007, at 13:38, Steve Heaven wrote: >>> On Wed, 2007-05-09 at 10:07 +0100, Adrian Stott wrote: >>> >>>> 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. >>> >>> >>> But this is the approach taken to allow access by those on low >>> incomes >>> to other areas of our culture and heritage, e.g. free/subsidised >>> entry >>> into museums art galleries etc. >> >> I'm afraid that comparison is not helpful. >> >> The marginal cost for a museum operator of providing service to one >> more customer is almost nil. That is not the case for a moorings >> operator. > > But it is the case for "navigation charges" (e.g. licences) which you > included in your list above.
I'd say the answer was 'somewhere in between'. Some of the cost of maintaining the track is down to the ravages of time, but additional users of the network consume water and incur wear and tear on structures and equipment so there must be some relationship between costs and number of licence holders. Baz
