The Love Food Festival was blessed with temperatures in the high 70s—and the Taxpayers’ Alliance was at the heart of it! Urging local residents and traders to sign their petition to ‘Cut Cider Tax’, Bath TPA supporters set up their stall at historic Dyrham Park in South Gloucestershire alongside local food producers and award-winning cider makers.
‘Almost a quarter of the price you pay for a pint of cider goes to the taxman,’ says South West grassroots coordinator Tim Newark. ‘It’s too much in these tough times and it has negative impact on the thousands of people employed in the South West in cider production. We had a great success with other campaign for lower beer tax earlier this year and we feel it’s only fair to help cider drinkers and makers too!’
Against the elegant backdrop of Dyrham’s 17th century mansion and deer park, we spoke to local cider producers. ‘Alcohol duty is a very clumsy weapon,’ says Richard Hudson of Dick Willows, a traditional cider producer. ‘They have very high duty in Scandinavian countries but it doesn’t stop binge drinking. From our point of view, an extension of the duty exemption on small cider producers would really help those of us who like to make high quality craft cider’
If you’d like petition sheets to pass on to friends and colleagues contact our South West grassroots coordinator Tim Newark at [email protected] or phone us at 0845 330 9554