Aye they are
And so are
like me who can't be bothered with it and have got fed up and can't be bothered with the arguments about refusing coordination so don't take any service at all and remain unkown traffic. And to be completely honest I haven't really noticed the difference between having a service and not having one apart from a distinct lack of
around being over controlled.
Basic they will only speak to you if the want to move you and they won't give you a traffic service because of controller work load, and you won;t get a deconfliction unless you paying a landing fee. Might as well not bother and keep 121.5 on and look out the window and save 40 quid in fuel in a SEP and 400 quid if flying the TP. TP we pay airways charges anyway if we are VFR and we still don't get a traffic service until the controller spots we are doing 220knts and
themselves when a warner goes off.