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Canal & River Trust showcases to Parliament the importance of the nation’s waterways


Ray T

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Press Release

 

20th October 2022

 

Canal & River Trust showcases to Parliament the importance of the nation’s waterways

 

The Canal & River Trust has hosted a week-long exhibition in the Houses of Parliament, setting out the importance of the nation’s inland waterways to society in addition to their core role for boats and navigation.  This includes providing green-blue corridors through towns and cities, connecting to the countryside, supporting jobs, the economy and helping to address the national crises in public health, biodiversity and the climate emergency.

 

With the Trust’s network of canals and rivers running through nearly half of the parliamentary constituencies across England and Wales, the Trust’s exhibition was an opportunity for the waterways and wellbeing charity to speak with MPs about how it supports local and national priorities, and the importance of the longer-term partnership with government to provide adequate funding to safeguard the network.  

 

Michael Fabricant MP, chair of the Waterways All Party Parliamentary Group, hosted the launch of the exhibition on Monday 17 October, with speeches also from Richard Parry, chief executive of the Canal & River Trust, and Philip Dunne MP, chair of the Environment Audit Committee.

 

Richard Parry commented: “Built 250 years ago as arteries of the Industrial Revolution, today Britain’s canals are the world’s finest network of working industrial heritage, and their role for navigation remains integral to their core purpose.

 

“Over the centuries they have seen significant changes in their prospects, from thriving trade routes through to their resurgence as green-blue corridors providing wellbeing benefits for the nine million people who have waterways on their doorstep.

 

“With the growing threat of climate change, Canal & River Trust is increasingly focusing its resources on increasing the resilience of the canal network and our core purpose of keeping the waterways safe, attractive, accessible and available for boating and the wide range of other users – on the water and on our towpaths, which attract around ten million users every month.  Our role extends to helping Britain mitigate the effects of a changing climate, from helping to cool cities in summer and moving water around the country, to providing low-carbon energy to heat homes in winter and as sustainable transport traffic-free routes through our towns and cities with potential for environmentally friendly water-borne freight to be revived.”

 

The Trust currently receives around a quarter of its funding from Government, in an agreement secured when the charity was formed in 2012. The Trust is currently working with Defra on a review of the grant for the period beyond 2027 when the current Grant Agreement comes to an end.

 

Richard continued: “As well as demonstrating the benefits that our 250-year-old waterway network offers, this exhibition helps illustrate its fragility in the face of more frequent and intense extreme weather events.  The scale of funding, and spending on the network must be maintained, with the sustainable long-term future of canals across England and Wales depending on building broad public support and maintaining our partnership with Government.”

 

-ends-

 

For further media requests please contact:

Jonathan Ludford, Canal & River Trust

m 07747 897783 e jonathan.ludford@canalrivertrust.org.uk

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"Our role extends to helping Britain mitigate the effects of a changing climate, from helping to cool cities in summer and moving water around the country, to providing low-carbon energy to heat homes in winter and as sustainable transport traffic-free routes through our towns and cities with potential for environmentally friendly water-borne freight to be revived.”

 

Where is that "low-carbon energy" coming from? Turbines in by washes?  Or harvesting trees for firewood from overgrown towpaths? 

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3 minutes ago, Ronaldo47 said:

 

Where is that "low-carbon energy" coming from? Turbines in by washes?  Or harvesting trees for firewood from overgrown towpaths? 

Most of the new high rise offices and flat developments surrounding Paddington Basin use Paddington basin water as part of their heat pump climate systems.

This was quite evident in the last proper winter of 2010, most of the GU and Regents Canal froze to several inches depth of ice, Padd Basin only completely froze over twice and melted within 24 hours both times.

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If that is indeed what is meant, it's a beautiful example of sophistry. For  while heat pumps can provide economical heating by refrigerating water (anything between 3kW and 7kW of heat transferred for each kW of energy consumed) they don't actually produce any energy themselves.

 

By the same criterion, the air and the ground from which air-source and ground-source heat pumps respectively extract energy to heat homes are also low-carbon energy sources.   

 

But if significant heat was indeed being extracted from the canal water in Paddington basin, it surely would have had much thicker ice that would have persisted longer than the ice in the adjacent waterways, because a heat pump heats the inside of a building by cooling the outside.

 

My local leisure centre has for some decades been using heat pumps to heat its swimming pool with the heat extracted from the ice of its adjacent ice skating rink, but I would not consider the ice of the ice skating rink to be a low-carbon energy source.

 

Edited by Ronaldo47
Ice skating rink comment added
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I've emailed the CRT to request feedback, I asked how many MPs they spoke to and what was feedback from them and from staff

I do not expect a direct

 answer to my questions. I may be wrong.

I expect they can use the display boards and the staff at other high profile venues to promote awareness. 

Perhaps forum members could send suggestions of upcoming events and locations, preferably some which dont require payment  :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

Edited by LadyG
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4 hours ago, LadyG said:

I've emailed the CRT to request feedback, I asked how many MPs they spoke to and what was feedback from them and from staff

I do not expect a direct

 answer to my questions. I may be wrong.

I expect they can use the display boards and the staff at other high profile venues to promote awareness. 

Perhaps forum members could send suggestions of upcoming events and locations, preferably some which dont require payment  :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

I hope you did not ask how many MP's had been manhandled to encourage them to attend ...

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On 21/10/2022 at 06:11, LadyG said:

I've emailed the CRT to request feedback, I asked how many MPs they spoke to and what was feedback from them and from staff

I do not expect a direct

 answer to my questions. I may be wrong.

I expect they can use the display boards and the staff at other high profile venues to promote awareness. 

Perhaps forum members could send suggestions of upcoming events and locations, preferably some which dont require payment  :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

.

 

 

You might also wish to ask CRT how much they paid lobbying firm Cavandish Advocacy for organising the event ...

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13 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:

You might also wish to ask CRT how much they paid lobbying firm Cavandish Advocacy for organising the event ...

Good God is that how it works, there is no end to it is

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3 hours ago, Heartland said:

Interesting Week 17 -24th October. One Prime Minister resigns and another is appointed. How many people will take notice of this CRT event, I wonder and will Cavandish Advocacy come up with a plan B ?

No plan  B from Cavendish unless CRT pays them.

Regarding plan A, according to Cavendish -

 

Quote

It was well attended by parliamentarians, who were given the opportunity to ask constituency-specific questions, organise a visit to their local network and have a pledge photo to show support for the work the Canal & River Trust does. 

 

Not sure if this photo provided by Cavendish supports the claims made -

 

FfmKVJOWQAEB8VU.jpeg

Edited by Allan(nb Albert)
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1 hour ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:

No plan  B from Cavendish unless CRT pays them.

Regarding plan A, according to Cavendish -

 

 

Not sure if this photo provided by Cavendish supports the claims made -

 

FfmKVJOWQAEB8VU.jpeg

Not a blue t shirt in sight. 👚🤔

  • Happy 1
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Does the central panel read "VITAL FOR WELL BEING AND THE ECONOMY"

 

What spin doctors are employed by Cavendish ? Tony Blair may be or is it Andy Street ?

 

Note the DfT announcement for October 22nd 2022

 

Sir Chris Whitty among senior figures appointed to Active Travel England advisory panel

England’s Chief Medical Officer joins West Midlands’ Mayor, Chair of the Office of Rail and Road, and Arup’s Global Transport Leader.

England’s Chief Medical Officer, Sir Chris Whitty, is one of 4 senior figures to become part of a new advisory panel, Active Travel England, today (22 October 2022).

Working alongside West Midlands’ Mayor, Andy Street, Chair of the Office of Rail and Road, Declan Collier and Arup’s Global Transport Leader, Isabel Dedring, Whitty will support Active Travel England’s aim to make walking, wheeling and cycling the first choice for everyday trips.

 

Edited by Heartland
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15 hours ago, Heartland said:

Does the central panel read

 

What spin doctors are employed by Cavendish ? Tony Blair may be or is it Andy Street ?

 

Note the DfT announcement for October 22nd 2022

 

Sir Chris Whitty among senior figures appointed to Active Travel England advisory panel

England’s Chief Medical Officer joins West Midlands’ Mayor, Chair of the Office of Rail and Road, and Arup’s Global Transport Leader.

England’s Chief Medical Officer, Sir Chris Whitty, is one of 4 senior figures to become part of a new advisory panel, Active Travel England, today (22 October 2022).

Working alongside West Midlands’ Mayor, Andy Street, Chair of the Office of Rail and Road, Declan Collier and Arup’s Global Transport Leader, Isabel Dedring, Whitty will support Active Travel England’s aim to make walking, wheeling and cycling the first choice for everyday trips.

 

To answer those questions -

Yes the panel says "VITAL FOR WELL BEING AND THE ECONOMY".

 

Cavendish used in house staff for this promotion.

 

CRT applied for active travel funding over two years ago for 30 schemes -

https://canalrivertrust.org.uk/news-and-views/news/we-are-proposing-active-travel-improvements-for-towpaths

This appears to have been unsuccessful as they do not appear on the list of recipients.

 

It is possible that Active Travel are constrained to deal with local and combined authorities with transport responsibility and unable to deal direct. 

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41 minutes ago, Heartland said:

A useful bit of information, so have CRT wasted their money in using Cavendish, or will MP's look at ways CRT will benefit their areas.

 

No they have wasted our money ...

 

The next attempt to influence MP's will be next Wednesday via the APPG Waterways where Richards Parry will be telling them about CRT's future financial position.

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8 minutes ago, Allan(nb Albert) said:

The next attempt to influence MP's will be next Wednesday via the APPG Waterways where Richards Parry will be telling them about CRT's future financial position.

 

How long does it take to say "BANKRUPT"

"Planned expenditure will exceed expected income, so we either 'cut back ' on expenditure letting some of the little used canals fall back into remainer status, or we get more money from HMG"

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25 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

How long does it take to say "BANKRUPT"

"Planned expenditure will exceed expected income, so we either 'cut back ' on expenditure letting some of the little used canals fall back into remainer status, or we get more money from HMG"

Expenditure is already exceeding income. Last year by £7.2m and the year before by £5.9m.

 

However, with assets of over £1 billion, CRT can hardly be called broke.

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On 29/10/2022 at 09:30, Allan(nb Albert) said:

It is possible that Active Travel are constrained to deal with local and combined authorities with transport responsibility and unable to deal direct. 

Further to the above snip of my earlier post, a week ago I made an information request for board minutes and papers which CRT should have already pro-actively publish months ago. The following from a Board meeting in November 2021 tends to confirm that Active Travel are constrained as suggested -

 

Quote

Worcester Birmingham Canal, Worcester – a further £200k funding secured by Worcestershire County Council through the Active Travel Fund for improvements between Perdiswell and Blackpole.

 

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The Active Travel Fund provides finance for Combined Authorities and Local Authorities according to the Government Website

 

www.gov.uk/government/publications/emergency-active-travel-fund-local-transport-authority-allocations/emergency-active-travel-fund-total-indicative-allocations#fnref:1

 

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