Bridge too far?

Work was finished on Middle Lock at Fradley Junction on Friday and the walkway across by the bottom gates has now acquired some ugly wooden railings.
I can only assume there is some reason for defacing a listed structure in this way. BW may well use the health and safety card but the lock has been used safely for more than 200 years, that's a hell of a risk assessment.
And do they have listed building consent for this act of vandalism?

Hit supermarkets that use forced labour

<p>Tesco, Sainsbury and Poundland are using unemployed youngsters who are forced to work for them or lose their meagre benefits.<br>
They work for nothing, enabling these billionaire businesses to not spend on proper jobs. The Nazis had a similar scheme for slave workers.<br>
It is called workfare, but it is not either proper work - or fair on youngsters who don't end up with a proper job. After all why should the greedy supermarkets give them a job when they can have the next bunch of slaves for free?<br>
I am boycotting all businesses that use forced labour and I urge you to do the same.<br>
Even better, cancel your Tesco or Sainsburys reward card and tell them why. They only give you a tiny discount on all the money you spend but the supermarkets find them a very valuable source of information about our habits.
Go on, kick em where it hurts and they may learn that exploiting young  people is not the way civilised buinesses behave.

BWML buys another marina

It seems British Waterways Marinas Ltd has bought Cowroast Marina on the Grabd Union - and sent a flutter through the commercial canal sector and boaters who want all cash spent on upkeep.
Although BWML fails to show much profit to BW thats mosly because it follows the BW template of high pay for bosses and letting inexperienced junior staff run the marinas.
What profits it does make have come in the past from high charges for 'Class 1' berths for liveaboards - and I have been one of them. At present it is getting formal planning permission for those berths and hiking prices by 50% as a result - apparently with the endorsement of the Residential Boat Owners Association, which I find odd.
If the NWC is to be self-funded there is an argument for it maximising BWML income but it should allow other marinas to compete on the same basis with comparable lease charges and no conditions imposed that are not also part of BWMLs contracts with BW/NWC

Time to check out real life and save our system

I know it's depressing but I suspect we are witnessing the beginning of the end of Britain's waterways thanks to everyone swallowing the 'third sector' codswallop.
The IWA, like a dog thats just been petted, wags its tail every time some minister praises it's work over the years.
It is so surprised to find someone who says it was right all along and the waterways should be looked after by a conservancy that it doesn't fight any more.
As long as politicians keep patting it on the head it can't be bothered to worry about inadequate funding, having to keep paying Evans his ludicrous salary, pension and perks, and the lack of confidence boaters have in the whole mess that is the NWC.
The other boater organisations are almost as uncritical and none are shouting out that the emperor has no clothes.
No BW successor can run the system properly without adequate financial support and Cameron and crew have no real interest in canals other than abandoning all financial responsibility for one of our great national assets.
They won't care if boaters are driven off and all the canals slowly silt up into weed and rubbish filled ditches - not their problem once it is a charity.
The rational approach would be for the taxpayer to provide the tiny amounts - about ten bankers bonuses a year - needed. We wouldn't even notice the 0.02p of tax it would take.
Instead we are going through this 'big society' farce for reasons of political dogma and the losers will be boaters and canal lovers.
I just wish the IWA and the rest would rediscover their crusading spirit and tell the greasy politicians they should be spending whatever it takes to keep such a fantastic national treasure in tip top condition.
If they are still spending £100,000,000,000 a year on the banks - and they are - then £100,000,000 on the waterways is much better value.
Lets stop massaging the egos of the 'great and good' being appointed to the various NWC committees and get back to a properly funded government operated system of British Waterways.

New Waterways Charity - the biggest con we've ever seen?

If the Government had come along and said to waterways people, "We are going to slash your budget so that you have about half what you actually need to keep the system going properly and you are never going to get any more regardless of inflation," there would have been uproar.
If it added the information that the waterways would continue to be run by the same bunch of former estate agents and accountants the politicians themselves had criticised as overpaid - and they would retain their bloated pay, perks and pension - we would conclude they were taking the piss.
If they then said that pathetic level of funding would disappear after losing much of its value, after a few years then most waterways people would conclude they were being abandoned by a government happy to abandon all responsibility for one of the country's great national assets and see a key part of our heritage in terminal decline.
A great campaign would have had ministers' ears ringing. There would have been narrowboat flotillas outside Parliament and the IWA and all the other defenders of the system would be shouting about the stupidity of such a plan.
So, how is it all right to do all that if the body left to pick up the pieces the Government has decided to throw away is given the title of a charity and finds committee seats for people who would otherwise be campaigning against what is happening?
How easily we are being conned into agreeing with the lie that a new waterways charity will make everything all right.
It's not too late to wake up and start fighting.

How does the IWA survive in this new canal world?

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.

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.

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.

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.