Your report about increases in licence fees for canal boats neglects to mention why the increase in fees is necessary (Fee hikes will price us out of canals, say houseboaters in England and Wales, 19 April). The Canal & River Trust (CRT) has, from its inception in 2012, received a grant from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs to help with the finances of running and maintaining more than 2,000 miles of the 200-year-old inland waterways network. This grant is no longer index-linked, and over the next decade this will result in a shortfall in funding to the CRT of approximately £300m. This shortfall will have to come from somewhere, and a proportion of it has to come from increases in boat licence fees.
A campaign called Fund Britain’s Waterways has been set up to try to get more funding from Defra for all Britain’s waterways. If it is successful, the large rise in fees will not be necessary. Some of the London boaters who seem most vocal in criticising the CRT would do well to support this campaign.
Michael Geraghty
Oleanna, Trent and Mersey canal
