On Monday afternoon, 26 February 2007, The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) is the first organisation to appear before another Efra Select Committee of MPs inquiring into the work of British Waterways, including the impact of Defra’s cuts in funding for waterways.
Meanwhile inland waterway users everywhere are preparing for another weekend of protests against Defra’s funding cuts. Next weekend, 3rd and 4th March 2007, a nationwide series of Waterway Community Days will take place to demonstrate how communities use and value their waterways. Boats and boaters will be there with every type of waterway user – walkers, anglers, cyclists, canoeists, rowers, horse riders, runners, environmentalists – along with local businesses who benefit from visitors. All are being encouraged to turn out to demonstrate to Government the value of a vibrant waterway to them, their community, local economies and the nation.
John Fletcher, national chairman of The Inland Waterways Association, comments, “Last weeks’ Efra Select Committee report identifies the shambolic state of Defra’s finances, something about which IWA has been campaigning publicly for 6 months, which has been denied by the Minister and the Secretary of State and is now coupled with the diabolical news that Defra is to be fined by Europe in the region of £305m for its Rural Payments fiasco when the Minister said that the likely cost was to be about £23m.
“The Efra report also highlights concerns about how Defra cooperates with other departments and its lack of policy coordination across government. Defra is meant to champion sustainable development policies that deliver on environment, health, education, social inclusion, transport, regeneration and economic development. The Inland Waterways Association’s evidence to the new Efra inquiry into the work of British Waterways will show how Defra are compromising the future of our inland waterways network and putting at risk the multiple benefits waterways deliver.
“Even more worrying in the immediate future is the concern I have: how will Defra approach the Government’s Comprehensive Spending Review? As a department that does not know what it has spent and what it has spent it on, how can Defra perform a reasonable negotiation with the Treasury on what it needs to spend in the coming three years? Last week’s report shows what we have known for many months - Defra is not fit for purpose. It is the users of the services and the customers of the organisations sponsored by Defra that are taking the brunt of this monumental incompetence.
“This has led to the Environment Agency concentrating most of the losses it sustained by reducing the flood defence budget. British Waterways (BW) has had to cut 180 staff posts and reduce spending on maintenance by £5.6 million this winter.
“Most of the waterways network is over 200 years old and structures will fail if not maintained. It may be coincident, but the number of unanticipated serious failures this year has increased three-fold over the same period for the previous year. BW has already identified a programme of works and the finance necessary to eliminate the backlog of maintenance by 2012. Defra’s funding cuts are now compounding and creating more maintenance arrears, with the signs being that a safety backlog will emerge once again”
The forthcoming nationwide series of Waterway Community Days follows on from the successful boat blockade weekend of 25th/26th November 2006 and last moth's spectacular Palace of Westminster Campaign Cruise on the tidal Thames when 30 boats paraded past Parliament representing 11 waterway organisations and action groups that have come together to campaign against the cuts in funding to British Waterways and the Environment Agency.
Over 20 events are scheduled for various times over the weekend of 3rd and 4th March 2007 at locations throughout the canal and river network. Those enjoying a visit to their local waterway will meet other waterway users, see displays about canals and rivers and be able to take part in fun Wild Over Waterways children’s educational activities. Members of Parliament – many who have already spoken out regularly against the budget cuts – and Members of the European Parliament will be at many events to meet all the different waterway users in their constituencies
Times and locations of events are listed on www.waterways.org.uk and www.saveourwaterways.org.uk Events are in final planning stages and details on these web sites will be updated regularly.
- ends -
MORE DETAILS and PICTURES from:
For further details on Waterway Community Day events and planning for 3rd & 4th March 2007 please contact:
07885 310348 or 07712 897075 or harry.arnold@waterways.org.uk
Photographs of previous protests are also available.
NOTES for Editors:
The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) is a registered charity, founded in 1946, which advocates the conservation, use, maintenance, restoration and development of the inland waterways for public benefit. IWA has over 18,000 members whose interests include boating, towing path walking, industrial archaeology, nature conservation and many other activities associated with the inland waterways. Information provided by 188 corporate members with their own membership structures has revealed that they, in themselves, have a combined membership of at least 59,500 in support of IWA’s voice.
IWA works closely with navigation authorities, other waterway bodies, a wide range of national and local authorities, voluntary, private and public sector organisations to raise funds, lobby for support and encourage public participation. The Association also supplies voluntary labour through its subsidiary Waterway Recovery Group.
More than 500 miles of canals and navigable rivers have been re-opened to public use since the Association was founded in 1946. Currently another 500 miles of derelict inland waterways are now the subject of restoration plans.
Further information can be found at www.waterways.org.uk and www.wrg.org.uk.
Background
For the latest information visit:
http://www.waterways.org.uk/News/DefraFundingCuts
The government sponsored navigation authorities in England and Wales receive their grant-in-aid from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs.
Owing to apparent calamitous mismanagement within the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), it has been unable to meet its obligations. This was first realised during March 2006, when the first cut to British Waterways’ budget was made. Since then, the Department’s financial position has worsened. The department must pay a large fine to the European Union for its failure to make prompt payments to farmers via the Rural Payments Agency. The Department has also incurred substantial overspends in correcting the systems that makes payments to farmers and on some other projects. No further funding is available from Treasury so the Department has decided to cut further the budgets of its responsibilities other than those related to payments to farmers.
British Waterways grant-in-aid for the financial year April 2006 to March 2007 was been cut by a further 7.5% (£4.5 million) in addition to the 5% (approximately £3.1 million) cut that was made in March 2006. (A further cut of 2.5% (£1.5 million) planned for autumn 2006 was not made after strong protests by IWA and others).
Late in the afternoon of 22nd December 2006 (the last working day before Christmas), DEFRA announced its budget allocations for 2007 - 2008 for its sponsored bodies and executive agencies, including British Waterways and the Environment Agency. The figure for British Waterways is £57.55 million, which excludes the grant made by the Scottish Executive for waterways in Scotland, but includes £2.048m for the repayment of a loan from the National Loans Fund (for upgrade of the Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation), which was agreed under ‘Waterways for Tomorrow’ six years ago.
The net figure for comparison is therefore £55.5 million, which is similar to 2006 - 2007, after the cuts in funding were made and with no allowance for inflation. BW’s original budget for 2006 - 2007 was £62.5 million.
The total funding for the Environment Agency in 2007 – 2008 is to be £661 million, of which the navigation budget is a small amount, which is yet to be decided internally by the Agency. The Department’s full announcement is available at www.defra.gov.uk/news/2006/061222c.htm
Over the weekend of 25th/26th November 2006 a number of protest events took place blockading Britain's waterways network (and one in Sydney Harbour, Australia) in support of the campaign against the funding cuts. This was followed on Tuesday 16th January by The Palace of Westminster Campaign Cruise on the tidal River Thames when 30 boats, their crews and prominent supporters, including well-known actor David Suchet, took the concerns directly to Parliament. MPs from all parties watched the flotilla and met with representatives of the eleven waterways interest groups taking part in the collective alliance campaigning against the funding cuts.
