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The following apparently comes from the Daily Express, but don't let that put you off. I seen and heard about this elsewhere. Please sign the petition at the link below.

RNLI: Crippling new charges
Saturday October 4,2008
By Geoff Maynard

LIFEBOAT crews fear being scuppered by crippling new charges for using
their radios from Ofcom, the communications regulator. The RNLI could see
the price of using its VHF emergency frequencies rise to £250,000 under
plans to charge the full commercial rate.

The charity, which saves hundreds of lives every year currently pays
an annual £48,000 at a discounted rate of 50 per cent. It relies on
donations and fears the move will have a disastrous impact on fundraising.
Peter Bradley, RNLI operations staff officer, said: "It's a lot of money
when you think in terms of lifeboat days and little old ladies collecting
pound coins. We should not have to pay at all.

"We could buy several inshore lifeboats for the same amount."

"The Government rely on us to provide this search-and-rescue service,
at a cost of £124million a year, but they want to charge us for the pleasure of doing it. We should not have to pay at all." Ofcom has set out plans to bring "market forces" into maritime and civil aviation communications in a policy it calls Administered Incentive Pricing.

It has started a consultation and wants responses by the end of the
month. Tamsin Thomas, spokesman for the RNLI, said: "We need to use our money as wisely as we can. Charges like this will be an additional burden on us."

While lifeboats will not be charged to use VHF ship-to-ship, the
charges would have a huge impact on communications between boats and
shore-based lifeboat stations. It would also cover pagers used by the RNLI
and other organisations to alert crews to urgent launches.

Simon Sparrow, skipper of the independent Sidmouth Lifeboat in Devon,
said: "Because of the credit crunch, we don't want to be paying any more
out." Charges for VHF could come in as early as next year. An Ofcom
spokesman said: "This is a consultation and we are open to hearing people's
views."

Please sign the petition below.

http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/RNLI-RF-licences/

I just did this, but got a bit put off by the fact that it said "all signatures required by 8 October". I'm not sure what is behind this date, but it is silly to set up a petitition with only about a week to sign up. I suggest that people keep signing it irrespective of the date, but I bet it puts off most people................
Bob

That date is the 8th October 2009 I have just signed it so lets all have a go.

Though we all hope we never need the services of the RNLI its good to know they are there and willing to put their own lives at risk for us

Although the petition is addressed to the prime minister, he is not solely to blame.

Directives, such as the one from Ofcom, emanate from unelected representatives in Brussels. Even our euro MPs are powerless to make changes.

Whenever we come across laws that seem completely bonkers to ourselves, they usually come from Europe. Hardly anybody in Europe has heard to the RNLI. So they are unlikely to be sympathetic to a charity, that doesn't include the Baltic, Mediteranean and the Italian lakes.

We can expect more of these silly directives from Brussels.

Not wishing to get too political, but what about getting rid of ofcom and financing the RNLI with that huge pile of cash they probably waste every year. Although I'm sure they probably do a huge amount of good and enrich our lives.

Or even get the government to finance it (us the tax payer) it seems to work for the greedy bankers, hedge fund managers and the like

I'd go for the RNLI every time

It looks like Ofcom are listening, which is good news:

http://www.ofcom.org.uk/media/features/rnliradio

One could still argue the £20k is too much, but there you go.

A response to the petition has been placed on the No.10 website with pretty much the same info as Ofcom published on their own site:

http://www.number10.gov.uk/Page17368

Result : http://www.rnli.org.uk/rnli_near_you/ne ... eid=582236