British Waterways/CRT begging bowls delayed

Still here - just been busy with lot of personal stuff over the last month but as BW will be delighted to hear I am still watching you! Like many of you who read this I keep a weather eye on the press and my personal highlights have been:

• BW's apparent discomfort over Parliament following due process leading to the postponement of the CRT launch.
• The complete mess that BW have made over Olympic moorings management, resulting in them having to offer to refunds boaters who had been led to believe they had no alternative but to buy extortionately priced towpath visitor moorings.
• The confirmation that BW did not do 'lessons learned' from past mistakes like the K+A bollards fiasco as has been clealrly demonstarted when it comes to the new fiasco with the Staffs and Worcester lock tail bridges. (This is a two part cock up - part 1, part 2.). Of course the lesson to be learnt from the 'waht a load of Bollards' case was remember to ask Boaters about plans you have that might effect them. This it seems remains an alien concept to too many people in BW!

Alan Richards continues to receive my admiration over his relentless dissection of BW spin over maintenance funding. When resorts to saying "misinformation", in my book that's  a good sign! It is in turn somewhat ironic that simultaneously we are being told that CRT's first priority and  one that is billed to be a central part of the official launch will be to start asking the public for donation money.

Don't forget Tony Hales thinks we are nasty people because we don't praise BW's achievements. With list of failures oops, sorry Tony, achievements like these what do you expect? 

Boaters and the Canal and River Trust

Been away from here for a few weeks, but been watching as ever. Some of my fellow boaters continue to disappoint, (but not surprise me). On the Facebook Boaters' Manifesto Group  a member posted the following on 05 April: Would i be right in thinking that The Boaters Manifesto has now died a very slow death?

No response from anyone for the next ten days, so I then said: Would it not be an idea to ask the recently elected Boaters Representatives for their detailed views on the Boaters' Manifesto?

This prompted a huge number of responses, but sadly most were in the negative. It seems no-one in the group has energy to take things much further following the elections. (If I'm wrong, and time may prove me so, that won't upset me.)

British Waterways/CRT begging bowls to appear shortly

This week saw the EFRA select committee's opening session on the transfer of BW to CRT. I have spent an amusing couple of ours watching Parliament TV. No huge surprises but what do you expect from these witnesses? Three core proponents of the CRT transfer and a fourth who pointed out from the outset that the people he represents rely on BW for their living. Hardly a representative group of the wider waterways community!

For me the most amusing part was Tony Hales explaining to the committee BW/CRT's apparently well-advanced plan to appear on towpaths with begging bowls disguised (as clipboards) this summer. 

British Waterways' latest proposals for wasting public money in London

With it's usual talent for wasting time and public money BW has launched a new consultation on cycling on the towpaths in Islington. BW is seeking view it's proposed mitigation measures for the towpath east of Islington Tunnel.

The whole consultation conveniently ignores BW's own policy that where appropriate they should direct cyclists, especially London commuters on to collateral routes. As a quick look at the London Cycling network website shows there are well established route parallel to the canal in the area.

Boaters fall for British Waterways divide and rule tactics

In all honesty I'm feeling pretty p'd off with the waterways world at the moment.

It seems to be finally dawning on more and more boaters what a pig's ear the proposed Canal and River Trust is turning into. Shame it's about a year too late and that people have only spotted it now we all but have a fait accompli.

People are also finally seeing the reality that the elections to the Council are being poorly run, that the constituencies are inadequate, badly thought out, leading to huge inconsistencies and discrepancies over who gets to vote in which consistency. More opportunity for boaters to be divided and be ruled at the hands of BW and a lot of people have walked in eyes wide shut.

Boaters' financial contribution to British Waterways: update

FYI - I have just added the following to the previous post on this:

Addendum - 22 January 2012 - As anyone who has used the link to my FOI on this will see, BW has answered and say that an additional £4.7M of their annual income comes from businesses whose primary customers are boaters. Add this to the the figures above and we have confirmation that Boaters provide at least 20% of BW's annual income worth around £35 million pa at last year's rates.

British Waterways' Commercial activities - Risk versus Gain

Something strange for you today - I am going to say something positive about British Waterways' property portfolio! (Before you get too excited do read the whole thing!)

Headline news is the Wood Wharf development in London Docklands, and that Canary Wharf Group has bought out Ballymore and British Waterways' regeneration/redevelopment interests in the scheme. British Waterways retain their freehold interest and it seems have some reasonable expectation of significant rental income in the medium to long term, once individual elements in the regeneration are completed and let.

Whatever the detailed in and outs of the Wood Wharf deal, this deal is, to me at least, reassuring. This much safer and less risky model of commercial investment, where BW stick to the Landlord function and stay out of the riskier Developer function, is one I have advocated to BW for years. I therefore have to be pleased about this week's events.

Now to return to my usual more critical mode!

British Waterways confirms that CRT represents privatisation (and a warning to the CRT Transition Trustees?)

It seems we have confirmation of my previous suggestion from a reliable source - British Waterways.

Their web page 'Charitable Trust Plans' today states that, "In April 2012 the Canal and River Trust will take over as the guardian of the waterways in England and Wales bring to an end over 60 years of public ownership."

RIP the Select Committee who said:  We were extremely surprised to discover that privatisation was one of the options being considered by BW’s ongoing strategic options review, and are disappointed we were not informed about this during our evidence sessions with BW. In our view, privatisation is not a serious option: the waterways network is a public asset providing wide benefits to society and some Government funding will always be necessary. It should be ruled out by the Government.

Source: http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmselect/cmenvfru/345/345.pdf