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Eileen McKeever

Waterway Manager – Environment Agency

Kings Meadow House, Reading RG1 8DQ

4 June 2008

Dear Ms McKeever,

Thank you for taking the trouble to write following my letter in the Times on 17 May 2008. In fact, I emailed the Save our Services website and was surprised when an abridged version appeared in the National Press.

I am reluctant to respond as I am sure you must be inundated with phone calls and correspondence concerning this matter. The fact that there are so many reasoned objections to the EA’s proposals should be enough to make your organisation re-consider the plan – or don’t the Public’s views matter?

I understand the points you made in defence of the plan, but the fact that you end your letter pointing out that 33 of the 45 lock sites will have a lock-keeper in residence says it all. It implies that lock-keeper presence is a good thing and you intend that only twelve locks will be unmanned.

I do not accept that the review was to "improve our management of the R.Thames". It was patently a review to cut costs and raise money and the EA you should be honest enough to admit it. It is tax and rate payers’ money you intend to save and I would like to see the financial projections behind this ill-thought-through plan.

You intend to sell or rent the lock houses in question, but have you thought about the implications should an undesirable tenant (or owner) rent (or buy) a lock house? The harm it could do to the EA’s image? Or the potential damage to the tourist industry? Or the effect on the environment? All the covenants in the world will not prevent a bad tenant having a detrimental effect on the Public interest, and the costs involved in stopping it could well negate any financial benefit.

The EA’s proposals make even less sense than its acceptance of some unaccountable Quango’s findings that ceasing dredging the river would not affect water flow or increase flood risk – nothing to do with saving money, of course. I hope the EA will break with tradition and find the humility to listen to the Public for a change.

Yours sincerely,

Gordon Spice