Boaters stop new appointment

BOATERS, together with an alliance of boating associations have used their clout to stop the Broads Authority creating the new post of Marketing and Promotion Officer.

The cost of the new post that the Broads Authority wanted to create to promote its activities would have been £45,000, coming of course out of the tolls, but boaters objected, Mick Fitzgibbons tells us.

Waste of money

It was the Broads boaters together with the Broads Hire Boat Federation, the Royal Yachting Association and the Norfolk and Suffolk Boating Association that banded together to fight the appointment, that was felt to be a waste of money just to self promote the Authority.

At a meeting it was stated that the Authority had more important matters that needed money, so it bowed down to the powerful alliance of boaters that had campaigned against the appointment.

Navigation expenditure

It was also stated that the Act regulating the Authority was clear on what constituted navigation expenditure, and employing someone in a marketing and promotion role did not fit that definition.

[Many Canal & River Trust boaters tells us that it is a pity that there is not such a powerful alliance in place to curtail the sometimes outrageous expenditure of the Trust.]