ÂŁ7.95
EA—Anglian Region Charges for 2012
F
or some time the EA Anglia Region Regional Navigation Group has been meeting three times a year. This year a special additional meeting was called to discuss Charging and it was held on 23rd September. It had been preceded by a meeting of the EA National Navigation Users Forum [NNUF] held in London on 23rd August and IWA representatives had the advantage of a report from Paul Roper the Chairman of Nav Com on that meeting. What had transpired at NNUF had been a long presentation about how Navigation would be funded in future. In essence GIA [i.e. the part of the Government grant devoted to Navigation] had been cut by 50% and the EA was considering introducing a licensing system under which the three EA navigation regions would each be expected to pay their respective running costs from registration fees with the GIA paying for capital investment. You probably do not need me to tell you that this could, if implemented. be a disaster for Anglia region boaters. The last figures I have [for 2009/10] suggest that in Anglia the licence fee pays about 64 % of operations costs. By contrast Thames pays some way more than its operations costs. If therefore the suggested charging regime were to be implemented over night it would mean that Anglia charges would need to be increased by some 36% while Thames would actually see a reduction in charges. With that background the IWA representatives at the RNG meeting (Derek Bradley 3