Paul

The Broads Authority commissioned UEA to undertake a study into the provision and status of Broadland's staithes least year, it was due to be published last summer but I don't recall having seen anything. Did I miss it?

these really are quite extraordinary Grendel, are you ready to make a 1:1 scale yet?

Perfectly true VC Yes they do, an annual permit, valid for those parts of the Canal network not operated by Angling clubs costs £20 per year for an adult yes they are. CRT say they "work with", whether that means they lease the fishing rights or grant them free I know not. If you join as a club or society you get a certain number of pegged matches free each year, depending on the number of members (minimum 10) Full information is available on the CRT website here: https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/waterway-wanderers

The EA receive revenue from the Rod License, but to fish the canals you have to pay, either the angling club controlling the fishery or to the Canals & Rivers Trust (British Waterways as was). I'm surprised nothing similar exists on the Broads.

I've often wondered why the Broads Authority don't charge anglers to fish on the broads, in the same way anglers have to pay to fish the canals.

Me too! Me Three

If the speed limit is shown in a red circle it is mandatory, regardless of whether it is a temporary sign at roadworks or other obstruction, on a gantry or other structure on a motorway or however else it may be displayed, it is the red circle which makes the limit mandatory. If there is no red circle it is an advisory limit but you may still be prosecuted under other offences such as due care etc if you do not comply with them. Where contradictory signs are displayed the lower limit always applies, so if a contractor has forgotten to obscure the main road signage when placing a temporary limit, (or the method of obscuring fails) the lower limit still applies.

I'm one of those few people who is the ideal weight for their height, sadly I am just 23 inches shorter than I should be.

Gareth Gates, any one of us....... what's that sorry, you don't believe me. Oh sorry, I got the year wrong! try this instead

We popped into the yard last month hoping to sneak a peek at Vista but she was still on the hard at Greenway. All being well we will take a look at her in the summer. I can only echo Robin's comment about the presentation of their boats. We have hired from Pacific something like forty times over the last thirty years and never been disappointed either with the service or the boats, always first class. Over the last couple of years with Vista, Sky and Diamond coming in they have updated the fleet quite considerably but even the older boats are very well looked after, most have been refitted and have new modern engines, and are offered for hire at much more competitive rates than most other yards. Add to that the more relaxed atmosphere on the southern rivers, lack of fights for moorings and the excellent waterside pubs I can understand why the yard is so popular.

I'm glad I'm not alone in that opinion. CF has gone downhill in recent years.

many apologies Grendel, I missed this earlier. I did not intend that it would contradict. It is the very fact that you have such a large volume of boats tied up for long periods which damages the infrastructure, or at least the infrastructure as we know it. A hire boat lives on it's mooring, then twenty, maybe thirty weeks a year it goes out full of holiday makers spending their "holiday purse" as someone excellently described it. Meanwhile it's mooring is vacant, available for anyone else who wants to use it. A privately owned boat may have to pay a charge, or may nor depending on the boatyards policy, but the mooring is there. A privately owned boat sits on it's mooring for however long, maybe the owner uses it twice a year, maybe every weekend, most likely somewhere in between. It doesn't really matter, whether that boat is at home or not it's mooring is not available. If I paid for a private mooring I would not expect to find someone else using it. In a way, a hire boat only ever needs one mooring, the one it uses that day / night. A private boat needs two, the one it lives on and the one it's visiting. Perhaps private boat owners should get together and form an equivalent of the HBF, allowing owners to use each others moorings whilst vacant.

And for the avoidance of any doubt and to dispel any concerns of the mods that my post might be political my reference to the government of 1979 was in no way politically biased. I distrust all of the scheming, self interested low life, regardless of which colour tie they wear on newsnight.

Crikey Ricardo, don't make such comments in open forum, I can see the new job ad going up on the BA website anyday now. "A new position exists for a suitable person to decide what get's done and what doesn't ....." Of course, the what doesn't column would increase considerably to fund the additional salary.

In the interest of fairness, I will disclose that the vehicle on my driveway is a fourteen year old Honda CRV which is rapidly approaching 200k miles. It will be changed shortly, either for a Volvo, Mercedes or BMW. Crikey, will that mean I become bourgeois nouveau riche? And whatever it is, the new car, shiny or otherwise will be paid cash as has always been my way, twenty bob in the pound and all that.

I'm showing my age here, I remember VAT at 8%. One of the first things that Margaret Thatcher's government did in 1979 was to increase it to 15%

You and me too!

I doubt anyone would argue with that, certainly not me, if you ever find a way to do it stand for parliament, I'd vote for you. Like inflation, fiscal wastage is nothing new. IIRC it was the main reason for the privatisation of British Rail and British Leyland. Did it make any difference? Not much from what I've seen, certainly in respect of our railways. Of course it is, but my comment was in response to a statement that we should not accept that prices increase, nothing to do with the cost of living which is a different issue altogether. As an aside, in 1970 the average weekly wage was £32, a loaf of bread 9p. By 2013 average wage was £425 and a loaf £1.30. Work that out and the average person could buy just about as many loaves in 2013 as he could in 1970. In 1970 a mini would set you back £600, 18 weeks wages. I won't compare with a modern mini as it is not a fair match, but at £7000 a Dacia Sanderos would cost around 15 weeks wages. Other than houses the cost of living hasn't changed that much, which highlights that fact that the increase in the standard of living shows how much more we spend on ourselves. So, a two car family! (sorry, I can't find an evil grin smiley to insert here!)

I stand co-accused, and offer no defence. The best we can hope for is to leave an environment for our children and their children that they can enjoy just as much as we did, albeit different. If the argument that things should not cost more were true then we would all be paying tuppence for a loaf and buying a house for £1500. As for nimbyism I thought the definition was quite self explanatory, however if further explanation is needed then I shall do my best. I would like a better health service, you stand more chance of seeing a unicorn in our village than a GP. I would like my children to be educated in a class with twenty children, like I was, rather than the thirty two there are at his school. I would like a Policeman walking around the village watching out for everyone as there was when I was a kid. My parents paid 30% income tax to fund all of that, with very little tax free allowance. If a political party formed and said "we will return to those standards, but we will increase income tax by 10p in the pound and half personal allowances would I vote for them? No. That is nimbyism. The flip side of that is the street we live in. When the houses here were built in 1980 not every household owned a car. Those that did would have Ford Escorts, Cortinas, Vauxhall what evers. Exotic in those days was a Datsun. Walk up the street now and you'll see a liberal sprinkling of Range Rovers, two Mercedes convertibles, countless E classes and 5 series an odd Tesla and five caravans. We can afford these luxuries because we pay less towards the general good. Would we sacrifice that for more ambulances, probably not. It doesn't stop me complaining about the poor GP provision or overcorwded school. That is nimbyism.

The spoil disposal is a good point but there are many others. Environmental and Health and Safety laws make things more expensive. Once upon a time an overhanging branch would be cut off by a man with a saw, dropped into the river, towed to a suitable place and dragged onto the bank and either cut up or left to rot. The man doing the work would make sure it was safe. Nowadays the same operation involves risk assessment, environmental impact report, liability insurance. There are many more similar examples. Some of this is perhaps BA policy, much of it is not. That said, I don't doubt that there is profligacy and waste as there is in the health service (your average hospital nowadays seems to to employ almost as many managers as doctors) and every other area of public spending.

Always happy to oblige. "Acronym applied to people who advocate a policy or process but object to it's implementation in such a way that it might impact upon them directly or require sacrifice on their part" Fits like a glove.

I knew at the time that my post would not be popular with the NIMBY element amongst boat owners, but the fact remains the broads navigation has to be paid for. Go back thirty years and you had thousands of hire boats paying the incremental toll versus hundreds of private boats, mostly owned by people local to the area paying the standard rate. During that time we have come full circle with the number of private boats far outweighing the hire boats. I have looked a number of times to see if the number of boats tolled on the broads is increasing or decreasing, but the authority are not good at making historical data public. Perhaps an FOI request at some point in the future will satisfy my curiosity. At the same time, the cost of maintaining the navigation has spiraled. Something has to give, we either pay for it to be maintained properly or we accept what we get. Just the same situation we are in with the health service, education, emergency services,armed forces etc. We have ever increasing expectations but when it comes to funding those expectation we are less forthcoming. That is general to society as a whole, not just the boating fraternity. We are no longer happy to drive Mondeos and watch Match of the Day on a 24 inch TV, we want BMW's, Porsche's or Mercedes Benz's and live football on huge screens. Society has become more affluent because we spend more of our money on ourselves, and less maintaining the infrastructure supporting it. At some point, that has to change. So, how does that relate to the OP? Quite simply, before we consider what "extras" we would pay more for we have to look at supporting the basics, dredging, navigation, operational cost (yes, I know we all hate it, but it is there, and has to be paid for).

an incorrect assumption

The best thing the BA could do with tolls is increase all rates to those currently paid by hire boats. I understand the fallacy is that hire boats should pay more because they are in use more, but the harsh fact is that the explosion of privately owned boats over the last twenty years has caused massive damage to the infrastructure with the need for an ever increasing number of private moorings to accommodate boats which are often only used a handful of times each year

only if you've a few weeks of your life you won't woory about loosing, those threads go on forever!!! And a very high boredom tolerance.