{"id":94147,"date":"2018-07-20T09:15:33","date_gmt":"2018-07-20T09:15:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=496f092de418f27cb4f73ef15db77514"},"modified":"2018-07-20T09:15:33","modified_gmt":"2018-07-20T09:15:33","slug":"press-release-boaters-views-sought-in-consultation-on-proposed-charges","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=94147","title":{"rendered":"Press release: Boaters\u2019 views sought in consultation on proposed charges"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"govspeak\">\n<p>Boat owners who keep or use a boat on waterways managed by the Environment Agency are being encouraged to have their say in plans to increase charges.<\/p>\n<p>A public consultation into proposed increases to boat registration charges for 2019-20 and 2020-21 launched today and will run until the 30 August 2018.<\/p>\n<p>The Environment Agency is the second largest navigation authority in the UK and is responsible for more than 1,000 km of navigable waterways including the non-tidal River Thames, River Great Ouse and Upper Medway Navigation.<\/p>\n<p>The proposed charges form part of plans to create a financially sustainable service on waterways used by almost 30,000 boats. Currently the cost of running the service far exceeds the income generated from charges, risking a reductions in the levels of maintenance of waterway structures such as locks and the standard of customer service boat users expect.<\/p>\n<p>The two year proposal gives time to complete a wider review of navigation charges alongside bringing in other measures to make the waterways less reliant on government grant-in-aid funding.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Ormrod, the national manager for navigation at the Environment Agency, said:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p>Our navigation service plays an important role in protecting our waterways and supports both recreation and business for thousands of people.<\/p>\n<p>This consultation is a valuable opportunity for our customers to tell us what parts of our service are most important and give us their ideas about how we should fund them so I would encourage as many boaters as possible to take part.<\/p>\n<p class=\"last-child\">An increase in charges is essential to work towards creating a sustainable service that covers the cost of maintaining our valued waterways and delivering a safe and efficient service for our customers.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The proposed increases will raise an additional \u00a3930k to invest in the waterways over the proposed 2-year period.  The increases by waterway are:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>River Thames: 5.7%<\/li>\n<li>Anglian Waterways: 7.5%<\/li>\n<li>Upper Medway Navigation: 10%<\/li>\n<li>Unpowered and boats covered by joint registration agreements: 7.7%<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Subject to the consultation response, new charges could be implemented from 1January 2019 on the River Thames and 1 April 2019 for our Anglian Waterways and the Upper Medway Navigation.<\/p>\n<p>To take part in the consultation, please visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/consultations\/consultation-on-proposals-for-navigation-boat-registration-charges-2019-to-2021\">GOV.UK<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Environment Agency seeks boaters&#8217; views on proposed increase in charges<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94147"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94147\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}