2009: good for overseas visitors on holiday...

This and the designation of waterways as ‘commercial, cruising and remainder’ gave a form of security for the future of the pioneering companies in the relatively new waterways industry.

There were serious concerns about the ‘remainder’ category but succeeding years have seen many miles of these reopened.

Jonathan Shaw MP, as the then waterway minister, invited MPs and other guests to a BW sponsored House of Commons reception to celebrate the anniversary; where your correspondent found himself as the only person who – as a young boatyard manager – had been at the original reception at the Ministry of Transport when Barbara Castle launched the White Paper.

Mr Shaw had been something of a breath of fresh air – certainly in his dealings with users – since becoming minister in 2007, but in the October reshuffle he was replaced by the equally personable Huw Irranca-Davies MP. The new minister made an encouraging speech at the reception, including promising to update the last major government policy document Waterways for Tomorrow.

He has since repeated this promise at the recent annual conference of the Association of Navigation Authorities. We live in hope...

Although there hasn’t been the intense level of campaigning against government cuts in Defra funding, the waterways profile in Parliament has again been kept high by debates and questions initiated by MPs Michael Fabricant and Charlotte Atkins. The latter was the first recipient of a new Inland Waterways Association (IWA) accolade - IWA Parliamentarian of the Year.

A further look at BW’s affairs was taken by the Environment Food & Rural Affairs Select Committee which gave users another chance to submit evidence and opinions.

Defra cuts
There were dire predictions of further Defra cuts and the 2009 grant was on a ‘flat cash’ basis, in effect the same amount as 2008 which – because of the lack of allowance for inflation – is in effect a cut. However BW since has been allocated an extra £1m and a further £2m for works in London connected with the Olympics.

Then came the ‘credit crunch’ which – along with all property – has affected the BW portfolio, which had been the major money earner.

Not only has it meant restructuring BW’s property company Isis, but in the recent government pre budget report (PBR) the Treasury apparently has its eye on it for a quick fund-raising sale.

The good news in the PBR is that BW is being allowed to bring forward £5m from future budgets to spend on planned maintenance and assist the construction industry. Hardly a fair exchange though, and chief executive Robin Evans has outlined the difficulties of BW’s current and future funding on a number of occasions, particularly at this year’s annual general meeting.

Despite the groups set up – such as the BW Advisory Forum - to involve users in talking about national and local issues BW has still had a lot of stick on the perceived lack of consultation on everything from licences to the installation of bollards at locks.

Although licence fee proposals for 2009, involving extra charges for wide-beam craft and continuous cruisers and a suggested 11.2% increase, have been dropped. A more sensible 6.2% increase for private craft and 7.5% for business leisure licenses has been announced, with a proposed 6.3% rate for Scotland’s waterways.

Despite user opposition, the question of an extra charge for continuous cruisers has not been dropped within BW and is likely to resurface. There is still similar – if not more vocal - opposition to the auction of moorings but it seems obvious that BW intend to stick with this market-force principle.

At the request of users BW has introduced a system where the public can report suspected licence evaders and over the past year non-payers have been pursued with an ever-increasing vigour. Many more boats have been dealt with under Section 8 legislation – removed, sold or destroyed.

Within licence checking BW has also put much more pressure on overstayers on casual moorings, a bone of contention with many other boaters.

More boats
BW claimed that there were now more boats on their waterways than in the heyday of commercial carrying. Somewhat irrelevant in maintenance terms, when in any one day most of those commercial boats would be on the move whilst today most are sitting on their moorings.

Last year also saw a huge increase in the number of marina berths, with a considerable number of new developments, particularly on north midland and north west waterways; Mercia Marina on the Trent & Mersey Canal near Derby setting a new size record for the canal network.

BW pledged to deliver up to 11,000 additional offline berths on its canal network by 2015; one of the objectives being to remove as many boats moored online into marinas and to free up navigation. We await this policy being implemented in the Derby area of the Trent & Mersey Canal.

It's also perhaps ironic (and worrying) that this major increase in berth numbers coincides with a downturn in the number of boats being built on the waterways.

A useful and fairly comprehensive report – Economic Benefits of Inland Marinas in the UK – was published by the British Marine Federation (BMF). Marinas appear to be a sector of the industry from which reasonable profits can still be made. Perhaps this is why we have BWML? And has the Treasury also got its beady avaricious eye on this BW asset?

The situation over Red Diesel finally came to head with the new regulations being introduced in November; the final resolution – a differentiation between propulsion and heating fuel – complicating sales to say the least. Some boatyards have simply decided to stop retailing fuel as stocks run out, others are still undecided.

The holiday hire industry has had a reasonable year on most waterways – including the Broads, Thames and Scotland – without any spectacular increase or decrease in bookings or boat numbers.

Internet
Most companies report more enquires and bookings coming through the internet, although hirers who book in good time rather than at the last minute still request a brochure.

The Association of Pleasure Craft Operators (APCO) has introduced the national code on the handover of boats. The instruction and competence of hirers has always been a perceived problem, despite new innovations like videos, so let's hope this goes some way to solving it.

Hiring on the Monmouthshire & Brecon Canal was, of course, seriously affected by the major breach on which repairs are making very good progress for a spring 2009 reopening.

This put another major dent in BW’s budget as – on a lesser scale – did the recent burst on the Stourbridge Canal. The timing and severity of floods on river navigations – once mainly a winter problem – caused increasing disruption to summer boating and, particularly on the River Severn, considerable cost in the repair of boating infrastructure.

Although we saw less reopening of actual miles of waterway in 2008, restoration schemes continued apace. The most controversial event among enthusiasts was BW pulling out of the partnership on the Cotswold Canal project and also its loss of a heritage lottery bid of £25m.

The same amount did, however, go to fund the ‘nodding horses’ of the Falkirk Helix scheme at the eastern end of Scotland’s Forth & Clyde Canal.

In Liverpool the construction the Link is on schedule and we have seen great progress on the reopening of the Droitwich, Manchester, Bolton & Bury and Chesterfield canals and on the 2012 London Olympics site’s new Prescott Lock. At Boston the Environment Agency (EA) is building the first major new lock in its Fens Waterways Link scheme.

On the Thames the Environment Agency literally got itself into hot water with its planned sale of lock and weir keeper’s houses from which - when faced with massive opposition from many quarters – it did a rapid about-face; confining the sale to five off-river properties.

It should be said that BW has been quietly selling off hundreds of cottages though local agents with very little national outcry.

Protests
Further protests from users made the EA reduce a proposed 11.8% increase in licence fees to a more sensible 7.8%. Despite this the EA has started a planned £6.3m upgrade and maintenance programme for this winter, with improvements at 18 Thames locks and general maintenance at 27 others.

The Broads Authority has a new chairman in Stephen Johnson and has moved into headquarters with the local EA and Natural England. Very cosy – but I bet communications between the three organisations still cost a fortune!

Like the other navigation authorities it had its own debacle over licence fees, which were proposed to rise by 9% for hire craft in 2009, with reductions for private and many smaller craft. However even the authority’s own Navigation Committee objected – quoting the current financial climate – and the increase has been kept to an overall 6%, with a concession for small sailing dinghies.

On the exhibition front – after a steady decrease in inland waterways interest since the first London International Boat Show at ExCeL – National Boat Shows (NBS) produced an impressive display of river and canal craft on the water in the adjacent dock in 2008. Good news for the industry and the profile of the inland sector at the show.

There seem to be less canal boats in the 2009 show, but they have added an outside inland waterways information stand which was lacking.

Perhaps the jury is still out on the second Earls Court Show - Peter Poland's report on the recent show starts on page 18 of this issue.

Prime show
Crick was still the prime show for narrowboat industry but was again affected by bad weather, whilst the IWA’s National Festival had again initially to cope with a muddy site but again turned into a very successful event.

We lost a few companies in 2008, Challenger Syndicateships being the most prominent but it should be noted that – apart from the hire fleet – all the shared ownership boats are still operating.

Sea Otter Boats went but is now very much back in business. The long established Severn Valley Boat Centre was the biggest loss, along with two or three smaller boatbuilders.

Customers are currently thinking hard before ordering new boats and there a lot of used narrowboats on the market.

But being optimistic (as usual) the falling rate of the pound against the euro and the dollar might encourage a lot of overseas visitors to holiday on Britain’s waterways.