Sitting Ducks

boatone

boatone

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29 Jul 2001
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Just a few cables from Boulters Lock
www.tmba.org.uk
From the EA Thames Annual Report for 2012/13:
Total income from all craft registrations £3.85 million
Total Income from annual powered craft registrations (motor boaters) £2.9 million
Income from British Rowing (rowing craft registration block payment) £61.6K

Please discuss while I have my lunch!
 
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How many motor boats and how many rowing craft do these figures cover? What do canoeing/sailing clubs pay? Is it a block payment like British rowing? I can see many motor boaters being a bit annoyed, especially those that rarely venture out of the marina.
 
alanch said:
How many motor boats and how many rowing craft do these figures cover? ……… I can see many motor boaters being a bit annoyed, especially those that rarely venture out of the marina.
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Private annual powered - 9,010 craft £2,871,225 (average = (£318.67) Rowing - 3,674 craft £61,620 ( average = £16.77 (roughly half an unpowered annual licence))

Others you asked about difficult to give figures because grouped together with all unpowered, houseboats etc but total for these 5,234 craft £357,143 income.

As for being a "bit annoyed", its time we started getting bl**dy angry, especially when you start to understand the amount of money that should be collected but isn't. And I'm not just talking about unlicensed boats!

Please note this is posted with my personal boaters hat on ! :D
 
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So we pay £318.67 average per boat, rowing club £16.77 per boat, (if I had a dinghy on the back of my boat probably about twice that), and the rest (unpowered, houseboats, canoes, floating hot tubs etc), an average of £68.23 each! Your'e right, a bit annoyed is tame, bl**dy angry it is.
 
My tender is smaller than most rowing boats, and is used once or twice a year.

If they think I'm paying for a licence for it, they can get stuffed.
 
Added to that, these jokers have a regatta, cordon the river off and rather than giving us the central third to go on which we pay £700 odd quid, we get the twenty foot of river adjacent to the bank.

What makes it so bad is they behave like they own the river and yet they pay diddly squat. We pay the lions share and get the scraps.

If this were france we would all be blockading
 
When they have a regatta do the visiting non Thames club boats have to pay a visitors licence?
 
Chill said:
When they have a regatta do the visiting non Thames club boats have to pay a visitors licence?
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What do you think....?

From the British Rowing website:

http://www.britishrowing.org/clubs/ea-boat-registration

"How much do registrations cost?

The standard fee for EA registrations is £33.50 pa. Reduced price registrations can be obtained from British Rowing.

The fees for annual registrations purchased from British Rowing are:
1 April 2013 - 31 March 2014

EA based Clubs:

Standard Registration £21.50
Junior Registration £6.50
Coaching or/and safety launches: £37.00

Non EA based Clubs:

Standard Registration £13.00
Junior Registration £5.50
Coaching or/and safety launches £37.00

Who is eligible to buy registrations from British Rowing?

Clubs who boat on EA waters
Clubs who boat from other waters, but row on EA waters for competition or training"


And for Canoe England members, membership covers them for the Thames and many other navigations.
 
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I'm surprised at how little they pay for their motorboat licences. It may impair my enjoyment of their megaphones, wash and blocking tactics.
 
The problem is that there have been decades of financial management neglect with arbitrary increases and everything has got completely out of sync with reality. While government was happily contributing many millions in Grant in Aid there was no real incentive to sort things out. Way back when, all the riverside local authorities also contributed mandatory levies which , in todays money, would probably be worth another half a million that has got lost as the river moved from Thames Conservancy through different authorities until the EA took over responsibility.
Now the government is actually taking money away in huge chunks and the remaining revenue income is wholly inadequate. A straight percentage increase on licences is the only short term avenue open to them unless government relents and bails them out. There's a load of income to be collected from both unlicensed boats and, particularly, unlicensed accommodations (many times the value of the annual increase) but now they haven't got the staff to actually make it happen.

Licence feeds are due on 1st January but almost half boat owners don't pay until well into the year and there is no cash-flow problem as there would be in a commercial business.
 
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alanch said:
So we pay £318.67 average per boat, rowing club £16.77 per boat, (if I had a dinghy on the back of my boat probably about twice that), and the rest (unpowered, houseboats, canoes, floating hot tubs etc), an average of £68.23 each! Your'e right, a bit annoyed is tame, bl**dy angry it is.
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so ,put the mobo price up to £1000 pa and include houseboats BUT then make all EA moorings free, then put private non powered up to £200pa and rowing clubs up to £100pa
 
Hang on just a minute here, but...... and I fully expect to get shot down in flames by the mobo mafia on here - LOL!

Where and why is most of the expenditure on the River - might I respectfully suggest it is the cost of running and maintaining the locks and other riverside facilities, moorings, pump out facilities etc. And how often do the rowers use these facilities? Very little, if at all I suggest.

For instance a couple of weeks ago there was a gang replacing the wooden piles and structures around the supports in the river to the metal road bridge at Cookham - why, because if a rowing boat was to take on the bridge, the rowers would undoubtedly come off worst, whereas if a motorboat was to do the same, it could, I dare say, bring the bridge down! So is this for the rowers benefit? No, so why expect the rowers to pay for it?

It would be interesting to see a 'user pays' exercise - how much would it then cost to transit a lock? Quite a bit I would suggest. And as for the boats that don't leave the marina, well they would almost have a free ride, but then why have a boat at all?

Taking cover and fastening the tin hat, ready for the incoming! :) :)
 
The rowers need water to float in same as rest and that is only there thanks to weirs and folks that man them.
Take them away and you are left with a trickle and no more regatta course.
Let's all stop paying and move to the coast and leave them to it.
 
Erm, what happened before the weirs?

There was a great, wide, shallow river! Rowers only need a few inches, well eight maybe to get the oar in properly, how much does a motor boat need?

And no weir keepers? The water would keep on coming regardless!!
 
hartcjhart said:
I am, care to join me, money has to be raised,how do you suggest it is done?
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Stop meddling in the Middle East and stop trying to buy influence in China and India by giving them millions in development aid? It all comes out the same pot and it annoys the hell out of me when someone suggests we should throw even more in.
 
Actionmat said:
Stop meddling in the Middle East and stop trying to buy influence in China and India by giving them millions in development aid? It all comes out the same pot and it annoys the hell out of me when someone suggests we should throw even more in.
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totally agree on that

but what my suggestion is that the money goes directly to the EA/waterways people to spend on waterway usage/facilities, not into central govs coffers
 
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