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Should we be paying 4 the privilege?


andy_youngs

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I work hard. I earn money. I pay an excessively high proportion of it over to the government in tax.

 

I go home and try to relax by going fishing in my local river. But I gotta get a license first, otherwise I'm deemed to be having fun without consent.

 

Personally, I object :angry: .

never try and teach a pig to sing .... it wastes your time and it annoys the pig

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I've personally got no problems with paying £25 odd a year for the privaledge of going fishing.

 

I think fishing can be a pretty cheap hobby to start with......rod, reel, terminal tackle, landing net, chair, rod rests etc and you could probably get kitted out with a good basic set up for £100. Now that is cheaper than a lot of hobbies.

 

Also, and correct me if i'm wrong, some of your license money goes towards maintaining our rivers and lakes, restocking them, pollution control and countryside maintenance around the waters.

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I have no objection to paying the rod licence. What I do object to is that ramblers, mountain bikers, climbers et al who get to use the countryside paths and facilities that are maintained by the Environment Agency at least partly with our licence fees pay nothing. Why should we subsidise their hobby? They should be subject to some form of licencing as well.

A Hammond

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Alan's point is well made. If I go to Spain I pay a 'visitors' tax to help maintain the environment out there. Right and proper, the same should apply to ramblers etc. Granted that ramblers pay their taxes, but then, so do I.

 

The anglers licence gives us a voice, and the licence fee is spent on angling.

 

Being involved with the Environment Agency does give me an insight as to how they work. Our licence fee does go to angling, it does not go on footpath maintenance miles from the river.

 

People happily lob hundreds of pounds worth of bait into the water to fatten up someone elses already obese fish, yet they object to paying the EA for the thankless task that they do. Strange world!

 

Andy, I note that you live on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. The EA is spending considerably more than your licence fee on angling within the Broads. The Broads Flood Aleviation Scheme, EA money, is doing considerable work of benfit to anglers, and some of it purely for anglers. Granted it is on the back of flood aleviation but we are seeing a benefit.

Edited by Peter Waller
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Definitely happy to pay the license over here. $18 for residential angling license, $12 for the trout stamp, one year of happy memories. The Department of Natural Resources does a good job of monitoring the fish populations in the lakes, rivers and streams in my state as well as sending out conservation officers to make sure people are abiding by the regulations.

 

Dave D.

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Andy, I note that you live on the Norfolk/Suffolk border. The EA is spending considerably more than your licence fee on angling within the Broads. The Broads Flood Aleviation Scheme, EA money, is doing considerable work of benfit to anglers, and some of it purely for anglers. Granted it is on the back of flood aleviation but we are seeing a benefit.

 

Peter - my feeling is that the rivers are a resource which belong to us all and the government should therefore be paying for our waterways to be properly maintained without singling out anglers for an additional charge.

 

In any event, my observations would lead me to question whether the EA is spending our money wisely. They seem very good a spending vast sums of money creating unnecessary bureaucracy, but when it comes to practical things like dredging and maintaining the upper reaches of the river then they are sadly wanting.

 

I recently canoed my local river waveney from its source in Diss to a point approximately 30 miles downstream (no additional tax for this activity I might add ... ). Most of the landowners I spoke to along the way were very disparaging of the EA's efforts. Just a few years ago the respective government agency would cut back reeds / overgrowth at least twice a year - once in the spring and once in late summer. Obstacles would be cleared, and areas of siltation dredged to ensure the river maintains a proper flow. These days, a combination of fiscal stringency and political correctness ensure that nobody bothers. A large extraction pump for irrigating the upper parts of the valley is ok, presumably based on the rational that allowing the upper reaches of the river to completely silt up will encourage biodiversity. In reality, I suspect we are simply building up massive problems for ourselves in a few years time ...

 

Of course, the lower navigable reaches are still dredged regularly, but this is to benifit the boating industry rather than the angling community. Pollution control and maintenance of waterways is vital, but these are things which the government should be doing as a matter of course without singling out one particular recreational user for an additional levy. Granted that restocking programmes are desirable and the EA does positive work in this regard, but equally, a great deal is done by private angling clubs and individuals, and there's always the argument that if the river is kept in a healthy state in the first place then it shouldn't be necessary to restock.

 

Anyway, I guess I'll grudgingly pay the £25 because its the law of land, but I'm afraid I do not have a great deal of confidence that it's fair, or that I'm getting proper value for money.

never try and teach a pig to sing .... it wastes your time and it annoys the pig

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try living up norf and see[or not] where the license fee isnt spent :2:

 

have opened the topic of the north south divide before so wont go into it again :wallbash::wallbash:

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www.electricunclesam.com

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The EA budget (the money it gets from the government to carry out it's statutory duties, such as flood defence etc) has been considerably reduced of late :(

 

However, the money from the Angling Licence goes into fisheries management and promotion of freshwater angling, and so isn't subject to the whims of treasury spending limits (all departments budgets are being squeezed).

 

 

So, the licence money paid by anglers at least protects to a certain extent the EA fisheries work.

 

 

Martin Salter (the 'Angling MP') recently wrote to the new Secretary of State for the Environment:

 

14thJuly 2006

 

Dear David,

 

 

RE – Cuts in Grant in Aid for E.A Fisheries Grant

 

 

I am writing to our recent conversation to register my concern at the recently announced cuts in G.I.A for the fisheries work of the Environment Agency and to ask you to review this decision.

 

 

I am well aware of the budgetary pressure that all departments are under but as you can see form the enclosed table the total G.I.A for fisheries has not had even an inflation rise since 2002 and now faces a cut of £400,000. At the same time Britain’s anglers are contributing an even higher proportion to the invaluable work of the E.A. through annual increases in their rod licences. This contrasts poorly with favourable treatment given to boat owners where G.I.A has risen from £8.3million in 2004/5 to £13.3million in 2006/7. Furthermore the extra income derived from boat registrations for 2006/7 is estimated at £4.2m. This means that anglers are being treated as very much the poor relations of the waterways in that they are contributing over twice the G.I.A figure compared to less than a third for boat owners.

 

 

You will be aware that these cuts will result in the reduction to the acclaimed Salmon Action Plan and in work to combat the spread of fish diseases. As the author of Labour’s Charter for Angling and our spokesman for a sport enjoyed by 3million people in Britain, I am extremely concerned at the consequences of this announcement and I must ask to meet with you before the summer recess in an attempt to get these cuts reversed.

 

We have a manifesto commitment to promote and develop angling and it is difficult to see how cutting the already the stretched budget for fisheries work achieves the objective we both share.

 

I look forward to hearing from you.

 

 

 

Yours sincerely

 

 

Martin Salter MP

Parliamentary Spokesman for Angling

 

 

Cc: The Rt Hon Richard Caborn, Minister of State (Sport)

Ben Bradshaw MP, Parliamentary under Secretary of State, DEFRA

Paul Knight, Salmon and Trout Association

John Slader, FACT

Terry Fell, NFA

David Bird, SAA

Dafydd Evans, E.A

 

 

Figures obtained by Mr Salter show that the proportion of the E.A Fisheries budget funded by anglers’ rod licenses has risen from 61% in 2002 to nearly 70% in 2006.

 

 

This was discussed at the recent 'Angling Summit' by representatives of the various angling bodies.

Edited by Leon Roskilly

RNLI Shoreline Member

Member of the Angling Trust

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Guest tigger
I work hard. I earn money. I pay an excessively high proportion of it over to the government in tax.

 

I go home and try to relax by going fishing in my local river. But I gotta get a license first, otherwise I'm deemed to be having fun without consent.

 

Personally, I object :angry: .

 

 

Snap!!!!!

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You wouldn't object if it was your favourite water that was cleaned up/reduced/saved after pollution or low oxygen levels.

 

If you want something you moan about try the price of daytickets and clubs. My fishing has be severly limited this year because I cannot afford the prices of my local day ticket waters and clubs.

 

I'm not going to get draw into a too political discussion here but if you think the government is going to spend revenue on improving waters solely for the benefit of anglers with the current NHS and school funding crisis you're in cloud cukoo land.

 

This way the moeny we spend looks after anglers needs rather than boat users and flood defences.

 

Compared to bait tackle and other costs £20 quid odd is nothing.

 

Rich

Edited by Richard Capper
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