Licence Dodgers

[Nugg]

Croix:

Malcolm,

 

As far as I know any type of watercraft using British Waterways controlled rivers and canals needs to be licenced. How strictly these laws are enforced on rivers and canals I don't know, but I think the penalties can be pretty steep.

Yep. Even a rubber dinghy needs a licence too.

[Liamsm]

Hi All,

I always get my licence automatically every year and the cost is then direct debited from my account.

What I would like to say, as a warning to all anglers, is that the rod licence is the very best political protection that we have, to protect our fishing.

So please do not ever support the abolishment of it.

It takes a very short-sighted angler not to see the importance of the rod license for securing future angling in our current political climate.

........Liam

[chesters1]

posted by DEN

quote:

---

I have said it before and will go on saying it forever...clean rivers and waterways are not the responsibity of anglers, they are a right to be expected and enjoyed by all the population and so should be paid for by all the population out of the general tax fund.

---

the water companies also make a good bit of lolly licensing companies to polute rivers with "treated" sewage ,probably at most screened and oxygenated at the most but still a polutant ,if someone in office had the balls to bring out a law that "anything entering a watercourse should be cleaner than the watercourse it enters" then our rivers would be clean ,and when i mean "clean" i refer to not only solids but hormones,metals,and microbes .But unfortunatly the fines are usually smaller than the cost of getting it treated and an income for the water companies probably means a "turned head" after all profit is profit.anglers are a ready source of income but unlikely in real terms to make a profit after paying chaps to check licencies and the such .the E.A pays to check licencies but relies on anglers to report polution ,if they had to employ agents to scour every bit of waterway fishable i think it would cost a tad bit more than they recieve in licence fees ,make the licence free ,get free polution officers (anglers)and make their money taking poluters to court

 

[ 18. April 2004, 09:59 PM: Message edited by: chesters1 ]

[Peter Waller]

Malevans, I pay £68.00 to licence an 11' dory on the Broads, I pay £76.00 for my sailing boat, I pay £22.00 for my rowing boat and I pay £22.00 for my canoe. I then pay a very large council tax because my garden goes to the waters edge. But if I didn't have a waterside garden then I suppose moorings would be a £1,000.00 per year. So yes, us boaters pay our share! And us Broadlanders don't pay anywhere near as much as Thames and canal boaters. The Broads exist because of a legal requirement to keep them open for navigation. The licence fee from Broadland anglers does NOT go to maintaining the Broadland rivers. That comes from the public purse, all of us, but largely from the Navigation fund, us boaters. I dare say that that is exactly the same on canals and rivers. I say that because I really do wonder where our licence fee goes, it doesn't appear to be used to maintain navigable rivers at all.

[malevans]

Peter, whats this money you guys have to pay for ? What is it whoever you give the money to licences you to do or for ?

 

I understand a mooring fee which is service received in return for payment.

 

I agree with you on the licence and where the money goes, as I said above I think many water users pay for some "facility" or access aspect, but they are not generically and directly taxed on antional basis which anglers are via the licence. In fact given the example of needing a licence to fish a "pond" you create and stock on your ones private land it now becomes clear to me. Its a rod TAX, nothing more nothing less.

[RUDD]

Liamsm:

Hi All,

I always get my licence automatically every year and the cost is then direct debited from my account.

What I would like to say, as a warning to all anglers, is that the rod licence is the very best political protection that we have, to protect our fishing.

So please do not ever support the abolishment of it.

It takes a very short-sighted angler not to see the importance of the rod license for securing future angling in our current political climate.

........Liam

Well said.

 

As for people claiming they cant afford it.

I bet they still smoke and p!ss their cash away.

A good night out on the town, for a meal, to the flicks etc etc will easily cost more than a licence fee.

I earn average wages, I have a newborn baby and a toddler that cost a packet and have to pay a morgage and stupid amount of various taxes.

I still manage to pay my licence and club fees by not having a beer on a Friday etc.

Some people make me sick.

[Peter Waller]

Malevans, the licence fee that we boaters pay goes into the 'Navigation' fund, the cost of maintaining a navigation. Dredging, bank maintenance etc. Due to conservation strictures the cost of mud disposal is immense. Where mud is disposed of on the bank, as part of flood defences, very good access is created for anglers and those who walk the waterways.

 

It does fall flat, to a degree, because a very large part of that fund is used to finance conservation projects. But since taxes top up the Navigation Fund I suppose it can be argued that birders and walkers pay their share via that route.

[malevans]

Sounds like the money the boaters pay goes to good use.

 

Liam's point on the political power of the license is also very true. But our greatest power lies in the economic value of angling, particularly in rural areas.

But having purchased two rod licences for my self, two for my son, and one for my wife ( in her case to fish man made,as recently as 1989, small stillwater lakes stocked with put and take rainbows), the after taste is still bitter.

 

Having already puchased two syndicate rods on a river in Scotland where the rod licence is not required, plus one carp syndicate membership, one MKAA ticket, and my son the local village angling club membership. I have with other anglers paid my equivalent of access and mooring fees.

 

However this has been very informative as I did not realise that dingy sailors or rubber dingy paddlers needed to buy a license. Which given the number of times I have considered getting a boat, but not gone through with it, is worth noting in the cost equations next time I consider it. Safety considerations not withstanding I always thought I could buy a canoe and go paddling on the great ouse, and likewise on lakes with a normal boat. Excepting having to pay for land access to launch the craft, where one is not the land owner ones self. Similarly where a lake is owned by a company I had always calculated that water usage fees would apply. But it appears a licence is required also.

 

I must confess that the contributions from tax top ups by walkers and twitchers does not interest me because if this is the case I am contributing to the cause also.

 

Anyway thanks for the information.

[poledark]

Which of the posters on here were you referring to Rudd?

 

What has wanting to spend your money on cigarettes and beer and "a good night out" got to do with anglers being taxed in the guise of a license?

 

For the record, I neither drink nor smoke but I do often go out for a meal with the wife, and I do not see that that has anything to do with the fishing license tax.

 

Hands up all those who feel that having to buy a license stops them smoking or drinking.

 

Den

[Nugg]

Liamsm:

Hi All,

I always get my licence automatically every year and the cost is then direct debited from my account.

What I would like to say, as a warning to all anglers, is that the rod licence is the very best political protection that we have, to protect our fishing.

So please do not ever support the abolishment of it.

It takes a very short-sighted angler not to see the importance of the rod license for securing future angling in our current political climate.

........Liam

Very very god point made here!!!!!!!!

 

[ 19. April 2004, 09:54 PM: Message edited by: Nugg ]