Cambridge listers may be interested to see this, posted on the Hampshire list... Dear Colleagues, As you may be aware, the costs of GRO certificates will rise from £7 to £9.25 on the 6th April. Costs haven't risen for some years but an extra £2.25 on every certificate. That's a whopping 32% rise. GRO produces 2 million certificates a year, so that's 4.5 million extra profit in one swoop. 90% of applications are online now, so their work is reduced but we pay more! They are even scrapping the "checking points", so no more refunds if its not the correct certificate. Although protesting will probably fall on deaf ears, if we stay quiet, they will think they can hike the costs up whenever they want to. At least we can express how we feel about it. If you agree, please copy and paste the link below into your browser and sign the e-petition. If not, sorry to have bothered you. http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/grocertificates/. Chris History of the villages of Dorset, Hampshire and Isle of Wight http://southernlife.org.uk

Hello Chris [correct name this time I trust, sorry!] Permit me to observe that the equivalent of at least two price increases have been made by the GRO in England & Wales [I do not know what GRO Scotland charges]. These effective price increases have taken the form of gradual reductions in the size of copy certificates issued. If that trend continues, we'll end up with copies the size of postage stamps accompanied by more counterfeit claims of having left charges unchanged. Regards Alan England. -----Original Message----- From: eng-cambridgeshire-bounces@rootsweb.com [mailto:eng-cambridgeshire-bounces@rootsweb.com] On Behalf Of Dick Coleman Sent: Wednesday, March 17, 2010 1:52 PM To: eng-cambridgeshire@rootsweb.com Subject: [ENG-CAMS] GRO Certificates - price hike Cambridge listers may be interested to see this, posted on the Hampshire list... Dear Colleagues, As you may be aware, the costs of GRO certificates will rise from £7 to £9.25 on the 6th April. Costs haven't risen for some years but an extra £2.25 on every certificate. That's a whopping 32% rise. GRO produces 2 million certificates a year, so that's 4.5 million extra profit in one swoop. 90% of applications are online now, so their work is reduced but we pay more! They are even scrapping the "checking points", so no more refunds if its not the correct certificate. Although protesting will probably fall on deaf ears, if we stay quiet, they will think they can hike the costs up whenever they want to. At least we can express how we feel about it. If you agree, please copy and paste the link below into your browser and sign the e-petition. If not, sorry to have bothered you. http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/grocertificates/. Chris History of the villages of Dorset, Hampshire and Isle of Wight http://southernlife.org.uk ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to ENG-CAMBRIDGESHIRE-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message