Sustrans Chugger
Yes, I was walking along the Taff Trail, near to Blackweir Bridge in Cardiff, and I bumped into a Sustrans employee. She was polite and asked for some of my time and initially I thought this was all part of a survey but it soon became apparent that she was a chugger (Charity Mugger) and was there for one purpose, to get donation sign-ups.
We discussed the Taff Trail and the wider network of cycle routes in the UK and then I made it clear that I would not be donating and for the following reasons:
Charities are a stealth tax
Charities should not exist
Charities have a poor record of doing the right thing
Charities have very well-paid management and directors
Sustrans has failed in maintaining it’s existing network
Sustrans poor decision-making has led to gross waste of given money
The poor give more of their income to charity than do the wealthy, hence charitable giving is a stealth tax on those that can least afford to give.
I believe that charities should not exist, that if they all closed down today the state would have to step in and provide decent services for all. After all that is what I expect from a government that has the highest tax rate of all time. A good example is Help For Heroes, heavily criticised for its wasteful spending. One must ask why even is Help For Heroes a thing? Surely, the government must be forced to care for those in need who have served the UK in a military capacity and are suffering because of their experiences?
Whilst charities step in government will never step up!
Remember Oxfam and the abuse of disaster victims? Shocking and yet Oxfam still trades. And where does your money go? This is one of the worst examples but many mirror this level of acute mismanagement of freely given cash - British Heart Foundation:Â 26.2p charitable activities, 40.6p fundraising, and 33.2p generating income.
The average salary for a director of a charity in the UK is £88,000. That’s quite a lot. I would suggest that well-intentioned volunteers could take up these roles. The director of the Red Cross gets a whopping £125,000… The Sustrans employer stated that we live in a market economy and so need to pay a market rate. She also said she was glad to have left London and she now enjoys living in a Labour-controlled country. I’m sorry, but those two assertions really ought not sit well together and I think this describes well the lack of understanding of political theory and economics of many.
Sustrans have recently downgraded 25% of its National Cycling Network routes as unsafe. This could be due to a range of issues but in the main will be adjacent to road traffic and surfaces not up to standard. Norfolk has lost a massive 42% of it’s NCN routes! Many years ago I made it clear that the development of routes ought to end and that focus should be on maintaining what was there. That fell on deaf ears then!
The chugger explained that Sustrans needed money to replace the barrier systems in place along its routes as they were not easy to use. Tell me about it. Again, I wrote to Sustrans perhaps 10 years ago and complained quite vocally about the impossible barriers along the Taff Trail and further afield, designed to stop off-road motorbikes and scooters using the pedestrian and cycle-only trails. Now they want me to pay them, through donating, to remove the barriers they so foolishly dotted along the trails they manage.
Well, I told her that was not going to happen and that indeed, for perhaps twenty-five years or more I had held fast to the doctrine of never ever giving any of my cash to any charity.
You can give to Sustrans HERE.