EA licences

[Guest DLF]

Dave

I am neither ignorant nor naive regarding the work the EA do, as a long standing licence holder I am kept informed via there magazine about the issues they cover, I am also a regular visitor to their web site so I am well aware of their other work.

 

They still don’t do enough licence checks though do they?

 

What I do know is that two stretches of river I loved fishing were ruined because of EA “improvement” work. One of them is now a shadow of its former self since the EA granted a licence for a food processing plant to dump effluent into it as cheap means of disposal. So don’t tell me how great the EA are when the only evidence I have ever seen of their handiwork was this vandalism.

 

I appreciate that there is a lot of work for them to do, successive governments have failed to fund the EA properly but how can they expect the ordinary angler to carry on buying a licence when he never has it checked?

 

Lee

[Guest dave k]

you are suposed to carry your driving licence whenever you drive your car and show it when requested by a police officer.

 

how many times have you complained that you havn't had to show it in a year or moaned because you havn't been stopped and checked?

 

that is a silly excuse for not buying one.

 

What are you doing about the stretch of water that was ruined ?

 

the companies involved have to apply for planning permission to discharge into rivers. Did you object? if not why not.

 

start trying to do somthing for your favorite river.

join the committee of your local club, get to know the fisheries officers for your area.be pro-active and put somthing back into the sport (lee this is not targeted at you)i see a lot of critisisum about the EA and variouse factions in angling.

 

If you are not happy, do somthing about it.

 

The work they have done on our stretch of the river Cam in the last 5 years have brought it back to life all at no cost to our club half the time i never even knew they were going down there to do the work. I turned up to fish one day and there were 7 EA vans down there.

 

It is not always horror stories. they do do good work. and we could probably find 10 good stories for every complaint you can think off.(or then again maybe not as some people are never satisfide)

 

and no i dont work for them

 

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dave kennedy USSC Angling

[Guest Scott]

If you go to the link Dave K suggested then click on the bit titled "What do we not do" then read the section titled "What we are not responsible for" the main one that stands out is Canals, they are not responsible for canals so why should any angler that just fishes canals have to pay a licence fee?

 

If you search further into their site you will find that 42% of their income comes from their charges for various things (rod licences being one of them). But they pay out 40% of their income on wages and training.

So how much of your £20 is actually spend on fish care?

 

Some people here are refering to the EA as some sort of God like saviour without whom angling would not exist, if they and the work they do is that good how on earth do anglers in Scotland manage without having to pay a rod licence.

Scott.

[Guest dave k]

do you want to pay £3000 for a weeks fishing on a private stretch of river scott?

thats what they do in scotland.

 

and as for the rest of the fishing/waters i would imagine that the rate payers have to support the work done on them.

 

maybe if all our rates were increased in England and Wales we wouldn't need a licence as well.

 

i know what i would rather pay £20 per year for a licence against at least a £50+ increase in the rates. because i cant see them increasing the rates to only £20 or less if the council was responsible for collecting the money

 

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dave kennedy USSC Angling

[Guest Scott]

Dave, less than 300yds from my house is a council owned reservoir, that is leased to my local angling club.

In the last few years a lot of work has been done on it by the council, new paths, trees planted, beach type areas created and so on.

Where do you think the council got the money to do that, I will tell you.

Out of my pocket in the form of poll tax.

 

So not only have i payed for that then I also have to pay the clubs fee and on top of that the EA.

 

There must be thousands of council owned waters all over England that we are all paying for with our poll tax, but like everything else in this country you have to pay for everything at least twice.

 

As for £3000 for a weeks fishing is this for a private strech of river that has a history of the best Salmon fishing or for a little stream full of Gudgeon?

 

So Dave what do you think of the canal point I made then?

 

Scott.

[Guest dave k]

most canals are fed by rivers are they not?

 

will the EA cut off supplys to them if they dont get revenue from the anglers.

 

you can use the same argument to say i dont watch BBC so i shouldn't pay a licence fee

 

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dave kennedy USSC Angling

[Guest Cranfield]

I quite like the argument "I do not watch BBC so why should I buy a TV licence.

[Guest Cranfield]

My post shot of so quick I did not have time to add that, I do have an EA licence and I think it is great value for money.

However, like a lot of other anglers (if they are truthful) I buy it because I try not to break the law.

If TV licences were stopped would you continue to buy one to support the BBC? I think not !

[Guest Alan Stubbs]

The law is the law and we demean ourselves and the sport by cheating it of funds.

 

It doesn't matter that EA may be underfunded for their workload. It does matter when people don't have the honesty to pay their legal dues for the privilege of participating in coarse angling. It's nothing less than cheating

 

 

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ANMC Founder Member

[Guest dave k]

just a few links to some of the debates we have had on this subject.

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/ubb/Forum1/HTM...TML/000133.html

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/ubb/Forum1/HTM...TML/003451.html

http://www.anglersnet.co.uk/ubb/Forum1/HTM...TML/004196.html

 

 

 

 

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dave kennedy USSC Angling