terrain safe, for starters you might want to dig out the Air Traffic Services Licence for NATS (En Route) PLC.
Condition 2: General obligation to provide Core Services and Specified Services may be your first point of reference.
As for your community service analogy, you don't often hear of airline pilots saying they're not going back to your airport when one of you has stuffed up. Don't tar everyone with the same brush, you are there to provide a service to all users. Oh and it's not 'your airspace', you are just managing it on behalf of the users.
Working Hard, providing an air traffic service does come at a cost and it's the airlines that bear the bulk of the burden there. I'm sure NATS would love to provide you with lots of dedicated VFR services over and above what's available now but someone does have to pay for it. The airlines won't, indeed they are already trying to get VFR GA to pay something to reduce their own costs, so who do you suggest does?
In the brave new(ish) world of the UK's privatised ATC service, he who pays the most does call more of the shots.