So let's tell em!

http://www.broads-authority.gov.uk/boating/questionnaire-to- toll-payers.html

BTW, the owner ref. No can be found on your Vessel registration certificate, as well as your toll account form.

I am very wary about giving my answers with my name: to what use will this later be put?

Or a nom de guerre.

Unfortunately, the Executive has decided that we must write our tollpayer ID on the form. Now, one of two things will happen:
- either the Executive will get to associate opinions with particular tollpayers, which is not a healthy development for a part of the government
or
- the Executive will have to accept opinions from people without tollpayer numbers. That would not be healthy either, though I can see it happening.

Mrs Dler makes a good point. When most organisations really want to know what people really think, they engage a third party to collect the information for them so that (1) the expression of the opinion is separate from the expressor and (2) only those who are eligible are allowed to participate.

This shows every sign of being an ill-thought out exercise. Nothing new there, then. The powers are new but the blunders continue. Let us hope that at least ONE of our local organisations will stop kowtow-ing and quickly take the lead here.

Why is the comparison made with the Thames. They might say it is because they use a similar measuring technique - square area - for tolls setting but of what relevance is that to the Broads. Oh yes I see - their power boats pay more.

They failed last year to get a big hike on power boats so now they introduce a questionnaire phrased in such a way that if you reply, you end up with no option but to provide them with the answer they want.

Neat eh!

Did we really get a drubbing in the Lords? I think not. We might not have won, but nor did Packman.

The harsh reality is that the Bill that is now going back for its third reading was being amended right up to the end of the final day.

The original consultation document has been watered down big time, numerous amendments have been made after comment by Little People.

If we accept that our protest has added £150,000.00 to the cost of the Bill then divide that by the amount of tollpayers, it works out at a quid or two each, darn good value for what was achieved.

NSBA, like the BA Chairman and the Nav Com, have now to prove themselves, something that I doubt, but lets give them a chance.

If the NSBA doesn't then there is a lobby toll payer's group waiting in the wings.

Packman's every move will now be under scrutiny. He has a major, major uphill struggle to win our trust. Surely even he must realise that?

We might not have won the first battle, but we are not going away, the Broads is too precious.

As far as this survey is concerned, ignore it. Whatever its outcome it will be used against us.

And one thing is for certain, Packman can not legitimately claim that the Lords result is vindication for his actions, no way!

Elsewhere in the world of cyber-chat, in a place bathed in light, one who is very well connected with administrative goings-on is advocating something of a boycott to the questionnaire. His bold statement advises avoidance of responding on the grounds that the questions are loaded.

This brave soul may find himself carpeted, or in receipt of an internal memo majoring on 'standards'. I doubt that he cares very much, but if either eventuality does come to be, then I do hope that support for this individual will prove to be a Force Majeure.

He has to be right, because were the questions not loaded there wouldn't be any point to the questionnaire. It's a means of furnishing statistical excuses for performing certain activities which could otherwise be criticised. There's no other logical reason for asking the questions, particularly where the questions are asked by a body which is supposed to be all-knowledgeable about the turf upon which we stand and the waters on which we play.

A subsequent post additionally makes the point that the questions were not constructed by the Tolls Working Group, that they were presented to the Group with an invitation to suggest amendments. That's not quite the same as having the Group write the questions for the purpose of guiding their own task-in-hand.

Boycott or no boycott, a number of toll-payers will return their survey forms. Together they will amount to a small fraction of the full count of interested parties. The positive answers will come from those who are completely detached from the wider worries about the Broads Authority's performance and agenda.

That, of course, is the whole intention. The Broads Authority is seeking to be ill-informed.

SS

Link to the Light Side topic

There are several brave souls out there, that is a fact. I suspect that public opinion would be very much on their side if push did come to shove.

Support for that 'individual', and maybe one or two others, will, I'm sure, prove to be a Force Majeure. Indeed I suspect that a certain person is on very thin ice, and the wrong dictate at the wrong moment could well be the final straw for an increasingly discontented waterborne public.

As for the loaded questionnaire, a boycott is the obvious route.

I certainly shan't be completing such a conspicuously biased survey. The comparison with the Thames is invalid for a number of reasons. It's already been pointed out that the average local income is far higher in the Thames Valley. It's also true that the Environment Agency has suffered a massive downturn in revenue from Thames river tolls/licences ... which doesn't seem to have been pointed out anywhere in the survey. Far from justifying higher Broads Tolls this comparison could be illustrating precisely what the Environment Agency got wrong on the Thames.

DON'T RETURN THE SURVEY!

OF