Fund Britain's Waterways

[TheBiscuits]

1 minute ago, IanD said:

Sometimes it seems to me that boaters are their own worst enemies... 😞

 

Nah.

 

 

[ditchcrawler]

12 hours ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

 That’s it I’m not. I just wanted to know a bit more about them from members. 
  Maybe they could campaign to get something done about the Northern canals, as I hear all the routes over the Pennines are closed due to stoppages. Maybe they’re more active campaigning in the South East and West?

But thats the problem, people want others to campaign for them and pay the bills. If every boater was a member of say IWA and paid £10 a year the society would have a lot more clout due to the number of members and a better budge to do it.

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

4 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

But thats the problem, people want others to campaign for them and pay the bills. If every boater was a member of say IWA and paid £10 a year the society would have a lot more clout due to the number of members and a better budge to do it.

Maybe they need to look at their advertising and promotion, get out on the ground and talk to boaters. I have the image of older members and canal restoration, that’s why I asked. Maybe they need to be a bit more active on the canals so people get a better understanding of their agenda. 

Edited June 29, 2023 by BoatinglifeupNorth

[magnetman]

£10 a year seems too little. 

[GUMPY]

1 hour ago, magnetman said:

£10 a year seems too little. 

Not if you have every boater as a member.

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

39 minutes ago, GUMPY said:

Not if you have every boater as a member.

Maybe CaRT could increase everyone’s licence by £10, then once a year make a secret donation of all the money to the IWA? They could even alternate it, so the following year it would be NABO, there funding problem sorted.

 But would it mean all the waterways problems sorted?

Edited June 29, 2023 by BoatinglifeupNorth

[wandering snail]

6 minutes ago, BoatinglifeupNorth said:

Maybe CaRT could increase everyone’s licence by £10, then once a year make a secret donation of all the money to the IWA? They could even alternate it, so the following year it would be NABO, there funding problem sorted.

 But would it mean all the waterways problems sorted?

NABO haven't got a funding problem!

[BoatinglifeupNorth]

10 minutes ago, wandering snail said:

NABO haven't got a funding problem!

You didn’t take that suggestion seriously did you?

[BEngo]

5 hours ago, ditchcrawler said:

But thats the problem, people want others to campaign for them and pay the bills. If every boater was a member of say IWA and paid £10 a year the society would have a lot more clout due to the number of members and a better budge to do it.

The real problem is that there has to be the will to campaign and to disagree with the status quo.    The IWA somehow 'lost' that will, and the ability to organise a physical presence sometime after 1968.  BW sealed its fate by "sponsoring" them when the National Rallies  became Trade Shows  and were not financially viable without that money.

 

CRT was an obvious disaster in the making, because the underpinning financial assumptions originated in cloud cuckoo land.  IWA were thrown the bone of, in due course,  merging the EA Navigation into CRT.  This they chose to see as a form of the National Waterway Conservancy that was Aickman's Holy Grail and they became blind to the serious problems built into the CRT model.  CRT has however been extremely effective in isolating the machinery of Government from  political pressure.

 

All this is compounded by the average "boater" being nothing of the sort.  Most marinas are full of boats that move little, and then rarely venture further than the nearest winding hole suitable for a weekend day trip to show the neighbours their status symbol.  A fortnight in Spring or Autumn might be a longer trip, but only for a few.  They have no need of, and not much interest in, a connected and widely navigable system.  When they are bored with the current marina, a boat mover or a crane will be engaged to take it to the next one.  The new mooring will meet the same weekend cruising needs as the last.

 

I am not sure where the answer lies but the remaining boaters are getting older and less able to fight their  waterways corner.  The younger (and angrier?) waterway users are largely there for a low capital cost home so see no need for a wide ranging navigable system.  Indeed,  some might see advantage in a series of local ponds just  connected enough to access essential services.

 

I  *am* sure that campaigning to fund CRT will, in the  long term,  be an  error.   CRT has proven itself not to be competent, so continuing with it has to be a short-term expedient, while we find and start to press for a better solution to managing the canals.  

 

N

 

[IanD]

10 minutes ago, BEngo said:

The real problem is that there has to be the will to campaign and to disagree with the status quo.    The IWA somehow 'lost' that will, and the ability to organise a physical presence sometime after 1968.  BW sealed its fate by "sponsoring" them when the National Rallies  became Trade Shows  and were not financially viable without that money.

 

CRT was an obvious disaster in the making, because the underpinning financial assumptions originated in cloud cuckoo land.  IWA were thrown the bone of, in due course,  merging the EA Navigation into CRT.  This they chose to see as a form of the National Waterway Conservancy that was Aickman's Holy Grail and they became blind to the serious problems built into the CRT model.  CRT has however been extremely effective in isolating the machinery of Government from  political pressure.

 

All this is compounded by the average "boater" being nothing of the sort.  Most marinas are full of boats that move little, and then rarely venture further than the nearest winding hole suitable for a weekend day trip to show the neighbours their status symbol.  A fortnight in Spring or Autumn might be a longer trip, but only for a few.  They have no need of, and not much interest in, a connected and widely navigable system.  When they are bored with the current marina, a boat mover or a crane will be engaged to take it to the next one.  The new mooring will meet the same weekend cruising needs as the last.

 

I am not sure where the answer lies but the remaining boaters are getting older and less able to fight their  waterways corner.  The younger (and angrier?) waterway users are largely there for a low capital cost home so see no need for a wide ranging navigable system.  Indeed,  some might see advantage in a series of local ponds just  connected enough to access essential services.

 

I  *am* sure that campaigning to fund CRT will, in the  long term,  be an  error.   CRT has proven itself not to be competent, so continuing with it has to be a short-term expedient, while we find and start to press for a better solution to managing the canals.  

 

N

 

 

I agree with everything you say, except perhaps the last paragraph -- given the funding constraints (inadequate) placed on CRT together with the KPIs and requirements from the government (linear parks for the general public, not boaters) it's not easy to see what they could have done differently. In the end their problem is not enough money, and being pushed into spending too little of it for the benefit of boaters and too much on blue signs.

 

I don't think they've done it from choice, as you say the financial assumptions came from cloud cuckoo land and have now moved onto the sunlit uplands... 😞

 

It's very easy for people to moan that "CRT are useless", but when asked what *they* would have done better given the same constraints the answer is usually silence -- or abuse...

 

Others may disagree, but I think replacing CRT with another organisation with the same funding and government attitude will accomplish precisely nothing -- it's the funding and the government attitude that needs to change.

Edited June 29, 2023 by IanD

[Paul C]

1 hour ago, BEngo said:

They have no need of, and not much interest in, a connected and widely navigable system. 

 

 

If the majority of boaters indeed have no need of, and not much interest in, a connected and widely navigable system then maybe that's the reason why there isn't a successful group campaigning for a connected and widely navigable system?

 

And by corollary, if its a minority pushing for the retention of the canal network as-is, while facing increasing costs of maintaining it as such, then the right thing to do, harsh as it may seem, is to re-evaluate the value-for-money in government funding?

 

CRT have probably pushed as hard as possible to get canals appreciated by a wider section of the general public and to "sell" its leisure benefits but if the masses simply don't want it invested in, then why should the government keep pouring money into it? For historical reasons? Is that enough to justify it?

[BEngo]

It is not that the masses don't  want or appreciate the canals.  They are just not now going to pay up for a benefit they have had free at the point of use "for ever".  Many have no appreciation that their enjoyment costs serious money to deliver and that some ( quite a lot)  of that money comes via the Government.  Others think  " Well, I pay lots of tax already so why should I be coughing up charity donations too?"

 

Boaters appreciate and want a connected, navigable system, so that they can be boaters. It is just that many boat owners are not boaters. 

 

N

[Paul C]

But I didn't say the public don't want it; I said they don't want it invested in. As in, they want it but not at the price it would be. As in, its down to a value-for-money proposition. Canals, unfortunately, are competing for spending on school infrastructure, energy bill relief, more policing, nurses pay, etc etc. And any politician who disproportionately favours the canals isn't going to be a politician for much longer (because the public wouldn't vote for that kind of thing....., they want their money spent on x, y, z instead). Get enough politicians in an organised fashion to agree as such, and the funding for the canals dries up.

 

Personally I will be able to cope with the inevitable managed decline which will occur slowly, yet surely. I've not put myself in a position where I'm relying on the canals, or severely disadvantaged if they don't work properly or disappear.

 

But I appreciate there is a minority who are in that position.

[LadyG]

I would like to support an organisation that intends to lobby government.

I need to understand what plans they have for the year and what costs are involved. 

I assume a lot of the work is going to be voluntary.

The Early Day Motion pulled together MPs, is this the route envisaged?

[wandering snail]

2 hours ago, LadyG said:

I would like to support an organisation that intends to lobby government.

I need to understand what plans they have for the year and what costs are involved. 

I assume a lot of the work is going to be voluntary.

The Early Day Motion pulled together MPs, is this the route envisaged?

Please register that you are interested in getting involved at info@fundbritainswaterways[.]org[.]uk. There is a boat gathering to protest in Birmingham 12th/13th August if you could plan to be there for that and another in London, probably November, date to be announced, with a petition to be handed in to Downing Street. Donations welcome to the campaign fund but otherwise, the only costs are getting to the gatherings.

 

Not sure why the email address has been messed with but please take out the brackets to use it!

Edited June 30, 2023 by wandering snail
Obfuscate email address

[Midnight]

15 hours ago, BEngo said:

The real problem is that there has to be the will to campaign and to disagree with the status quo.    The IWA somehow 'lost' that will, and the ability to organise a physical presence sometime after 1968.  BW sealed its fate by "sponsoring" them when the National Rallies  became Trade Shows  and were not financially viable without that money.

 

CRT was an obvious disaster in the making, because the underpinning financial assumptions originated in cloud cuckoo land.  IWA were thrown the bone of, in due course,  merging the EA Navigation into CRT.  This they chose to see as a form of the National Waterway Conservancy that was Aickman's Holy Grail and they became blind to the serious problems built into the CRT model.  CRT has however been extremely effective in isolating the machinery of Government from  political pressure.

 

All this is compounded by the average "boater" being nothing of the sort.  Most marinas are full of boats that move little, and then rarely venture further than the nearest winding hole suitable for a weekend day trip to show the neighbours their status symbol.  A fortnight in Spring or Autumn might be a longer trip, but only for a few.  They have no need of, and not much interest in, a connected and widely navigable system.  When they are bored with the current marina, a boat mover or a crane will be engaged to take it to the next one.  The new mooring will meet the same weekend cruising needs as the last.

 

I am not sure where the answer lies but the remaining boaters are getting older and less able to fight their  waterways corner.  The younger (and angrier?) waterway users are largely there for a low capital cost home so see no need for a wide ranging navigable system.  Indeed,  some might see advantage in a series of local ponds just  connected enough to access essential services.

 

I  *am* sure that campaigning to fund CRT will, in the  long term,  be an  error.   CRT has proven itself not to be competent, so continuing with it has to be a short-term expedient, while we find and start to press for a better solution to managing the canals.  

 

N

 

I agree with everything you say including the last paragraph.
IMO the only effective boating group are the NBTA and they would love to see the navigations closed to all but CMers. Maybe one solution would be for the C&RT waterways to be merged into and managed by the EA Navigations?

[BEngo]

1 hour ago, Midnight said:

. Maybe one solution would be for the C&RT waterways to be merged into and managed by the EA Navigations?

The EA doesn't want its *existing* navigation responsibilities.  The reason they did not transfer them to CRT was that the money the EA said it spent on navigation (and thus would lose as grant)  was less than even CRT's Trustees could be persuaded to take them on for.  No doubt the EA's navigation costs were carefully calculated to be as low as possible, but that is what financial wizards are for!

 

I can see no prospect of the EA taking on CRT's load:

It is not a politically practicable move.

EA would want even more money than CRT to do the job.

Navigation  is so far down the EA pecking order that the canals would be in a parlous state really quickly.  Not just the navigation structures would be at risk.  The EA would probably revoke, restrict, or not reapply for the extraction licenses necessary to keep the canals in water in order to say that they were reducing the amount of water taken from rivers.

 

N

 

[IanD]

5 hours ago, Paul C said:

But I didn't say the public don't want it; I said they don't want it invested in. As in, they want it but not at the price it would be. As in, its down to a value-for-money proposition. Canals, unfortunately, are competing for spending on school infrastructure, energy bill relief, more policing, nurses pay, etc etc. And any politician who disproportionately favours the canals isn't going to be a politician for much longer (because the public wouldn't vote for that kind of thing....., they want their money spent on x, y, z instead). Get enough politicians in an organised fashion to agree as such, and the funding for the canals dries up.

 

Personally I will be able to cope with the inevitable managed decline which will occur slowly, yet surely. I've not put myself in a position where I'm relying on the canals, or severely disadvantaged if they don't work properly or disappear.

 

But I appreciate there is a minority who are in that position.

 

The public doesn't have any say in what the Government spends its money on, or things might be *very* different -- I imagine HS2 would disappear for starters, and that costs *far* more than the canals do... 😉

 

(and then there's Trident, and...)

[Paul C]

2 hours ago, IanD said:

 

The public doesn't have any say in what the Government spends its money on, or things might be *very* different -- I imagine HS2 would disappear for starters, and that costs *far* more than the canals do... 😉

 

(and then there's Trident, and...)

They do, ultimately. HS2 isn’t really political (it has cross party support)

[IanD]

3 minutes ago, Paul C said:

They do, ultimately. HS2 isn’t really political (it has cross party support)

Nope, the public only chooses which government it wants. Once they're in, they can do anything they want regardless of public opinion, as we've being seeing... 😞

 

HS2 certainly shouldn't have cross-party support any more, even the fudged figures show it now has a cost/benefit ratio far too low to be justified, and that's after they've cancelled the bits needed to make it vaguely useful -- and it's sucked up all the rail funding which could otherwise have been used for the benefit of far more rail travellers, especially in the North.

[Stroudwater1]

30 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

The public doesn't have any say in what the Government spends its money on, or things might be *very* different -- I imagine HS2 would disappear for starters, and that costs *far* more than the canals do... 😉

 

(and then there's Trident, and...)

 

Please leave that to the political section Ian. The public haven't had much different say regardless of which party is in power for all my many years of life. I dont see either major party diverge on HS2 or Trident (Both appear to support it, Labour want to extend it northwards IIRC ) Please dont bring it up in this section which seems pretty vital for the waterways survival? 

 

Are there more details about the Birmingham boat gathering, or can there be more when things are finalised? Hopefully there will be something for those who cant get there by boat but are keen to partake and voice concern.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[IanD]

13 minutes ago, Stroudwater1 said:

 

Please leave that to the political section Ian. The public haven't had much different say regardless of which party is in power for all my many years of life. I dont see either major party diverge on HS2 or Trident (Both appear to support it, Labour want to extend it northwards IIRC ) Please dont bring it up in this section which seems pretty vital for the waterways survival? 

 

Are there more details about the Birmingham boat gathering, or can there be more when things are finalised? Hopefully there will be something for those who cant get there by boat but are keen to partake and voice concern.

 

 

It would also be helpful if there were more details about what they would actually do with any FBW donations -- what do they pay for, IWA running costs to support the campaign or something else?

[Stroudwater1]

6 minutes ago, IanD said:

 

It would also be helpful if there were more details about what they would actually do with any FBW donations -- what do they pay for, IWA running costs to support the campaign or something else?

 

Ive emailed them as I would like to get to Birmingham but  received a holding message. 

 

The press release has gone into many boating mags, so at least somethings happened to drum up interest. I presume/hope given that it appears to be a coalition the rules over funding will have been straightened out in advance. Im a bit reassured that the former IWA CEO has written a  letter in Waterways world about the reason for them leaving (Not enough hours in the day) . Perhaps the slumbering giant will awaken. Time to rejoin I think.

 

. 

[LadyG]

On 29/06/2023 at 12:38, ditchcrawler said:

But thats the problem, people want others to campaign for them and pay the bills. If every boater was a member of say IWA and paid £10 a year the society would have a lot more clout due to the number of members and a better budge to do it.

But if they reduced membership to £1 per year they would have many more members, so that argument alone does not hold water.

Edited June 30, 2023 by LadyG

[Tim Lewis]

12 minutes ago, Stroudwater1 said:

 

Ive emailed them as I would like to get to Birmingham but  received a holding message. 

 

The press release has gone into many boating mags, so at least somethings happened to drum up interest. I presume/hope given that it appears to be a coalition the rules over funding will have been straightened out in advance. Im a bit reassured that the former IWA CEO has written a  letter in Waterways world about the reason for them leaving (Not enough hours in the day) . Perhaps the slumbering giant will awaken. Time to rejoin I think.

 

.