A roller coaster ride for British Waterways

Perhaps British Waterways (BW) has had the biggest roller coaster ride, with a reduction in revenue from its property portfolio and an announcement from Defra of a cut of £4.6m in its grant-in-aid budget for the year 2010/11.
 
BW’s planning for an underfunded future led to urgent surgery and a yet another re-organisation into 11 engineering maintenance areas and a focus on regeneration, with the loss of 100 middle management jobs.

Repairs to major breaches and re-openings of the Monmouthshire & Brecon and Stourbridge were celebrated, although the latter still had further problems. Unfortunately these were followed by a major burst on the Shropshire Union Canal, two slightly less troublesome ones on the Llangollen Canal and another biggish one (still unrepaired) on the Caldon Canal: all further drains on BW’s precious resources and examples of how fragile parts of the network are and also reminders of a still present backlog of maintenance.

The good news was the opening of the spectacular Liverpool Link waterway, taking the Leeds & Liverpool Canal through to the South Docks and the Mersey. In London the big new Three Mills Lock in the Prescott channel of the Lee was completed, facilitating improved freight access to the 2012 Olympic Games construction site.
Progress was also very good on the Droitwich Canal restoration, the last of the group of current schemes that have receiving major outside funding.

There’s been, however, steady local progress – mainly volunteer and local authority driven – on other restoration projects such as the Chesterfield and Cotswold canals.
In Scotland, waterways continued to get extra financial backing from the Scottish government and a plan for a new Loch Lomond Canal – linking that popular inland loch to the River Clyde – has been approved.

Heritage
On the heritage front, BW celebrated the 40th anniversary of 1968 Transport Act, which set up the nationalised waterway network, and the designation of the upper section of the popular Llangollen Canal – embracing the world-famous Pontcysyllte Aqueduct – as a World Heritage Site. The Stourport Basins regeneration scheme, on the Staffs & Worcester Canal, also won the Best Heritage Project in the National Lottery Awards. The Environment Agency (EA) announced major flood channel works on the Thames, which could affect navigation, and on the River Witham completed the £8m Boston Lock link to South Forty Foot Drain; the first step in its ambitious Fens Link scheme.

Also in the east the Broads Authority Act received Royal Assent, which will change some management aspects of the Broads system.
In the Midlands the amalgamation of the Lower and Upper Avon trusts was completed, creating a single independent navigation authority for the river from Tewkesbury to Stratford.

Inland freight movement has had its ups and down with some new traffics started and some lost, and reports and proposals produced for sensible development on rivers such as the Trent. There’s been some drop off however in aggregate traffic due to the recession in the building industry. Despite continual lobbying by various groups there still seems to be a lack of proper recognition by the British government of the environmental benefits of water transport. Private industry does seem to be aware of this (and profits) with the plans for Port Salford, a new freight terminal on the Manchester Ship Canal announced by Peel Holdings as part of the company’s £50bn Ocean Gateway scheme for this canal and the River Mersey.

Political
On the major political front, BW’s property portfolio and its possible acquisition by the government has been a continual subject for speculation, with the whole matter only being cleared up by a recent assurance. BW launched a view for the future called ‘2020’ vision basically proposing that they become a ‘Third Sector’ organisation, in effect a charitable organisation, involving stakeholders (in particular volunteers), on the lines of something like The National Trust. Unsurprisingly they appointed consultants, who we first met at the BW AGM, and as we go to press have produced an initial report ‘Setting a New Course’ - available on britishwaterways.co.uk/settinganewcourse 

It still doesn’t adequately explain what’ll replace the existing guarantee of the government’s ultimate legal responsibility to fund the BW waterways in a crisis. There’s been considerable lobbying on behalf of the waterways and against spending cuts by voluntary and trade organisations. The Inland Waterways Association, under new national chairman Clive Henderson, has continued to campaign against cuts and launched a new Save Our System campaign – SOS 2010.

The IWA also formed an alliance with eight other organisations, including the British Marine Federation (BMF), to campaign for and promote waterways.
Waterways continue to have good support in parliament with a group of MPs – Charlotte Atkins again prominent among them – tabling questions, early day motions and debates. The most recent debate resulted in a major government statement from waterways minister Huw Irranca-Davies promising the launch of another consultation called ‘Waterways for Everyone’ before the parliamentary Christmas recess.

Expansion
The biggest expansion in the waterways industry was again in the number of marina moorings and in planning applications for more off-line basins, generally averaging around 200 berths, mostly now under construction; although there’s local opposition to other proposals. About three years ago BW chief executive Robin Evans spoke of the urgent demand for thousands of more such berths. It looks like his wish has come true, but some might ask – with the decline in boat orders – has the demand temporarily peaked?

Also there are few signs of BW’s commitment to remove a proportion of on-line moorings as marinas are built; but we are in the midst of yet another consultation with users on the whole subject of moorings.

The marketing of marina berths has become more competitive in certain areas with some companies offering attractive deals on moorings. This winter there’s a very noticeable decline in live-aboards (or continuous cruisers) and owners just leaving their boats on the towpath in my village and others that are termed honeypot mooring sites in the area.

Whether this is due to the increased availability of permanent moorings in the area or the introduction of time restricted casual moorings, combined with stricter enforcement by BW officers – or a combination of both – remains to be seen? 

The National Association of Boat Owners (NABO) still dispute BW’s powers under their enabling legislation to introduce mooring restrictions and has recently taken further legal advice on the subject. No doubt the matter will again be well-aired under the current mooring consultation?

Enforcement
BW’s enforcement teams have certainly become more effective, particularly in the crack down on licence evasion. There’s also far less tolerance of evaders among legitimate licence holders.

Despite the various navigation authorities’ urgent need for more funding licence fee increases for 2010 have been kept fairly low – albeit following some lobbying by users – with encouragement to renew earlier before the return of the VAT rate to 17.5%; something that again will affect all aspects of the industry. The 6% increase recently announced by the Broads Authority (BA) is among the highest, which it says is following a consultation with boaters on improved facilities. The EA is still working towards a scheme to harmonise licence fees throughout its various navigations.

Orders for new boats have certainly declined and we have lost a few boatbuilders, although the situation is probably not as gloomy as many predicted a year ago.
There’s also an increasing number of owners who can no longer afford to remain in boating, so consequently there are a lot of good quality boats on the market. However shared ownership schemes seem to be benefiting from ex-owners moving into this sector.

Boatyards involved in annual maintenance work have also noted that owners are cutting down on, or deferring, non-urgent jobs; the availability of dry-dock time – which once had to be booked months ahead – being an indicator.

Chris Coburn of Lee Sanitation, who supplies equipment to most of the industry and has a wide overview of the situation (he’s also a well-known waterway enthusiast) summed it up for us thus: ‘So they told us no more boom and bust! Considering the severity of the situation I think the marine industry has managed itself extraordinarily well. Times have been (still are?) difficult and yet relatively few companies have failed. Perhaps today's IT equipment affords us better management of our affairs, or perhaps we simply control them better than the government, which we’d all like to stop thinking they can spend our money better than we can for ourselves. 2008/9 was really horrible but since late spring and with economies put in place last year, my feeling is, very few companies are in fear of not making it.’

Stay at home
The state of the economy and the exchange rate with the euro has encouraged more stay-at-home holidays and the hire boat industry has been one of the beneficiaries. Holiday hire operators have generally had a good year on the majority of the main waterway network and some have announced expansion, opening new bases for 2010.
With the Tullett Prebon London International Boat Show upon us – and the return of a waterways feature within the halls – it’s worth recalling that there was a good display of inland waterways craft in the dock at the 2009 event.

Crick remained the best waterway trade show, despite a few gaps among the boat exhibits, and that the IWA Festival was blessed with three days of good weather and was a more family friendly attraction. This year the IWA returns (for the third time) to the popular Thames venue of Beale Park, but personally I’m looking right forward to Liverpool in 2011, which has great water space and facilities for a northern based show with a strong waterway flavour; but I’m rather biased as I spent much of my youth in that city!