Disappointing but entirely predictable for the UK sadly. After all, price gouging is actively encouraged. Look at the price of a PfCO compared to other countries (Part 107 etc etc). Its so high its completely prohibitive to get.
For US readers, they're proposing $21.50 a year, every year.
So over a 3 year period US users would pay $15 whereas UK users would pay $64.50 for the same thing.
There is no way they can justify paying 4-5x that rate for essentially the same thing.
A few things too, they claim the ongoing cost is for training and so on. What they forget to mention is that training and most of the other things listed are a one off, one time spend and not a recurrent cost.
Nothing in their document explains how these vague costs they mention are 4-5 higher than elsewhere for the same thing. The UK is not a special case cost wise.
Im entirely in favour of drone registration BUT it must be done on a cost-neutral basis and made as easy as possible for an end user whereas this clearly is not.
It'll also be counter-productive. The annual cost is so high people simply wont bother registering which will have the opposite effect to what they're trying to achieve.
So what do i get for my £16.50 a year ? A small one off registration fee is fair enough.
But what else do i get? Insurance? Nope.
Loosening of restrictions for registered, legal users? No.
Legal help against land owners and illegal bylaws attempt to restrict my usage? Nope
After the first year i dont have get "value" out of that registration fee so i get absolutely zero value for money out of it.
So why would anyone bother?
If they get the claimed 170,000 registrations thats £2.8 million ($3.6 million) a year in income. There is no way thats justifiable as a non-profit operation as they claim. Its a big chunk of income and is pretty much just a drone-tax.