I have been chatting today with some old IWA hands - founder members of key branches and participants in the early campaign cruises.
Without exception these pioneers think the current leadership has gone soft.
"They don't campaign any more, they think sitting on a committee is enough," said one veteran.
"The leadership is now mostly well heeled people with posh boats who can afford high fees and charges, they are out of touch with people like us who can't even afford BWs mooring charges these days," explained another.
This generation can't understand why the IWA is accepting the under-funded stitch-up of the new charity and want them, instead to be fighting the rumoured closures of canals like the Huddersfield Narrow and the Rochdale.
But they are not optimistic. "I can see the rich middle class boaters now leading the IWA taking the plum voluntary roles in the new charity and supervising the same failed ex B W bosses as they continue to starve the system of investment and put up charges to boaters," said one disillusion lady.
It is easy to see an unholy alliance between the IWAs shiny boaters and BWs greedy bosses being passed off as some brave new third sector organisation we should all support so that government can abandon all responsibility for the waterways.
Alternatively the once fiesty, fighting IWA could get its balls re-attached.
Saturday, 7 May 2011
Friday, 6 May 2011
IWA analysis is almost right
No one could be more surprised that the The Inland Waterways Association (IWA), which is not known these days for being hard-hitting has issued its initial response to Defra’s consultation document on the Government’s proposals and they broadly agree with me.
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| Charity fund-raising is not enough to keep our system going |
Boats and boaters should come first and the IWA says that navigation 'as a defining influence on how the charity is operated, is too weak throughout'.
As we all know there is not enough money and the IWA says up front that the figures don't stack up and that the system will be some £15- £45 million p.a. short of what is required.
It also says that the EA rivers must come into the system cleanly and on time and that the new body shouldn't have fewer obligations in relation to commercial, cruiseway and remainder waterways - they want them all to have a chance of survival.
Unfortunately it doesn't quite have the balls to say that it is ridiculous that the new charity - likely to be underfunded and underpowered - should be obliged to maintain the rich lifestyles of the current BW senior directors, as well as their pensions.
Wednesday, 4 May 2011
New charity for the waterways
I've just read the entire Defra consultation document on the new waterways charity (http://www.defra.gov.uk/consult/2011/03/30/waterways-1103/) and it looks as if the coming together of a number of vested interests will hand our national waterways over to a bunch of official do-gooders.
The IWA has believed for years that it can run the waterways better than BW and this government claims it needs to off-load the cost of running our canals and rivers and desperately needs at least one 'civil society' organisation to its name that works, at least for a year or two.
The BW bosses want to hang on to their pay, perks and pensions and it looks as if the new charity will have to keep employing them on exactly the same terms - so that is a £1m hole in the budget just to keep the three top men.
The forgotten people here are the boaters who use the canals and rivers and make them interesting and attractive. We will get canals with less money spent on them - just £39m a year for the new charity and no index linking.
We will be faced with bossy volunteers who know little or nothing about boats, or canals for that matter, and will revel in their new role and we will still have the pleasure of paying even more to keep BWs bosses in clover as licences go up above inflation and the concept of paying for casual mooring, initially through fines, is crept in by the likes of BWs 'head of boating'. Note that Evans and company keep all their pay perks and pensions under the new body - that's £1m a year spent before we start.
You can guarantee all the skilled BW staff will have been given the elbow and replaced by volunteers who certainly wont be there on wet and cold days in February when a paddle is broken.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a publicly funded body caring for a part of our national heritage - only political dogma declares otherwise - and we should be fighting to keep a properly public funded BW rather than trying to make the best we can of the political lash-up called the New Waterways Charity.
The IWA has believed for years that it can run the waterways better than BW and this government claims it needs to off-load the cost of running our canals and rivers and desperately needs at least one 'civil society' organisation to its name that works, at least for a year or two.
The BW bosses want to hang on to their pay, perks and pensions and it looks as if the new charity will have to keep employing them on exactly the same terms - so that is a £1m hole in the budget just to keep the three top men.
The forgotten people here are the boaters who use the canals and rivers and make them interesting and attractive. We will get canals with less money spent on them - just £39m a year for the new charity and no index linking.
We will be faced with bossy volunteers who know little or nothing about boats, or canals for that matter, and will revel in their new role and we will still have the pleasure of paying even more to keep BWs bosses in clover as licences go up above inflation and the concept of paying for casual mooring, initially through fines, is crept in by the likes of BWs 'head of boating'. Note that Evans and company keep all their pay perks and pensions under the new body - that's £1m a year spent before we start.
You can guarantee all the skilled BW staff will have been given the elbow and replaced by volunteers who certainly wont be there on wet and cold days in February when a paddle is broken.
There is absolutely nothing wrong with a publicly funded body caring for a part of our national heritage - only political dogma declares otherwise - and we should be fighting to keep a properly public funded BW rather than trying to make the best we can of the political lash-up called the New Waterways Charity.
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