CRT Press Release - CRT scoops Charity of the year Award

[Leo No2]

 

Canal & River Trust scoops Charity of the Year award

 

Just over 18 months after launching, the Canal & River Trust has been unveiled as Charity of the Year by Peoples Postcode Lottery.

 

The award was made this week at Peoples Postcode Lotterys annual Charity Gala attended by 500 people at the historic National Museum of Scotland.

 

The Award was given in recognition of the way the Trust, through support from players of Peoples Postcode Lottery, had raised public awareness and support of a project to help save the nations historic hedgerows which, although so important for biodiversity, have declined by 50% since the Second World War.

 

In making the award, players of Peoples Postcode Lottery gave a special one-off £50,000 cheque to support the Trusts work. It also committed to increase the Trusts annual grant by 25% to £125,000.

 

Richard Parry, chief executive of the Canal & River Trust, was on hand to collect the cheque for £50,000. He comments: We are so grateful to players of People's Postcode Lottery for their support. This is the second year they have supported us and to be selected as Charity of the Year from amongst so many good causes is a tremendous accolade and a fantastic vote of confidence in the Canal & River Trust.

 

I am delighted that the support from players of Peoples Postcode Lottery has increased; this special one-off award of £50,000 provides vital funding which will give a tremendous boost to our efforts in 2014. We have already identified three very special projects that it will support.

 

Clara Govier, Head of Charities at Peoples Postcode Lottery said: The Canal & River Trust does some amazing work - transforming places and enriching lives of people through living waterways. Were delighted that our players are able to support the work of Canal & River Trust and showcase the work that makes them worthy winners of Charity of the Year.

 

The one-off award of £50,000 for being Charity of the Year will mean players of Peoples Postcode Lottery will add to donations from local communities to fund three of the Trusts priority appeal projects:

 

With a £20,000 appeal now fully funded, a volunteer canal workboat will be bought into action on the Worcester & Birmingham Canal. The boat will be skippered by local people and will host local schools who will transform the Worcester & Birmingham Canal to create new wildlife habitats and tackle litter and graffiti along the waterway.

 

A £27,000 target has now been met to raise money for volunteers and trainees at the National Waterways Museum in Ellesmere Port who are restoring Ferret, an historic working canal boat built in 1926. Supported by celebrity chef, TV presenter and Hairy Biker, Dave Myers, Ferret will once again be operational allowing future generations to experience what life was like for the people who lived and worked on the canals and rivers.

 

Funding will also support the Trusts exciting conservation efforts across Birmingham and the Black Country, working with the National Sealife Centre, to help protect and encourage both water voles and otters living in these urban waterways to flourish.

[carlt]

The Award was given in recognition of the way the Trust, through support from players of Peoples Postcode Lottery, had raised public awareness and support of a project to help save the nations historic hedgerows which, although so important for biodiversity, have declined by 50% since the Second World War.

I'm pleased to see some recognition for them but, in turn, the amount of the country's hedgerows have been stable, if not increasing, since the 1990's thanks to both local authority policy and EU legislation.

 

The decline since WW2 is to be expected, with the mechanisation of farming and the need for bigger fields.

[Jim Riley]

aren't some of the hedges between the waterway and the towpath?

 

Seriously tho, well done Cart

[NigelMoore]

http://www.countrysiderestorationtrust.com/news/crt-scoops-prestigious-design-award

 

A good reason to stick with CaRT instead of CRT?

 

Wouldn't want those donations going to countryside restoration instead of canals.

[magictime]

Fair play to them. It goes to show that the idea of a charitable "National Trust for the waterways" with wide recognition and popular support (from donors and volunteers) is not so ridiculous. My leftie instincts mean I'll never prefer this "Big Society" model to the old model of a publicly owned national asset funded through general taxation, and run/maintained by workers who actually get paid (gasp!) for working; and all the usual caveats apply about the level of charitable donations being far too low to obviate the need for substantial state funding. But things are as they are, and this is a piece of good news.

[NigelMoore]

I was curious, on reading Mr Parry's identification of three very special projects that the award will support, to see what worthwhile waterways restoration projects he had in mind. On reading further I discovered that the money will be going to wildlife habitats, voles, otters and a "Ferret". Undoubtedly worthwhile, and apposite to a countryside restoration charity.

 

I am left wondering though . . . when is a charity going to come along that will be interested in the primary remit that BW were once entrusted with?

[Ronniesonic]

 

I was curious, on reading Mr Parry's identification of three very special projects that the award will support, to see what worthwhile waterways restoration projects he had in mind. On reading further I discovered that the money will be going to wildlife habitats, voles, otters and a "Ferret". Undoubtedly worthwhile, and apposite to a countryside restoration charity.

 

I am left wondering though . . . when is a charity going to come along that will be interested in the primary remit that BW were once entrusted with?

Nigel- I wholeheartedly agree with you on this one. Like I have said before, there are plans a foot, in the not to distance future, to effectively close some stretches of Canal to Boat traffic.

[johnthebridge]

 

I am left wondering though . . . when is a charity going to come along that will be interested in the primary remit that BW were once entrusted with?

 

I think you already know the answer to that question Nigel.

Hedgerows? Feckin' Ferrets?

What's that noise? Only the sound of old boatmen, spinning in their graves.

Edited January 31, 2014 by johnthebridge

[magictime]

I was curious, on reading Mr Parry's identification of three very special projects that the award will support, to see what worthwhile waterways restoration projects he had in mind. On reading further I discovered that the money will be going to wildlife habitats, voles, otters and a "Ferret". Undoubtedly worthwhile, and apposite to a countryside restoration charity.

 

I am left wondering though . . . when is a charity going to come along that will be interested in the primary remit that BW were once entrusted with?

 

What a strange comment. £27,000 of the award is funding the restoration of a historic working boat, and £20,000 is funding a volunteer work boat that will see local schoolchildren out on the water, tackling litter and graffiti (as well as, yes, creating wildlife habitats). Presumably the remaining £3,000 is the portion that's earmarked for the vole and otter habitat project.

 

Yes, there's some overlap between these projects and projects that you might expect to be undertaken by a countryside restoration charity, but since there's some overlap between the countryside and the waterways, that hardly seems surprising.

 

When you talk about 'the primary remit that BW were once entrusted with', I assume you're talking about the sort of waterways management, maintenance and restoration that relates specifically to navigation? But it would be absurd, in 2014, to treat the waterways network solely as a transport network for boats to move around. Their future depends on our recognising their wider value to the 99% of people who are not boaters - as cycle routes, as places to go jogging or for a picnic, as a 'living museum', as wildlife habitats, as an educational resource, etc.

 

How much money would you expect to come pouring into a waterways charity that promised not to create wildlife habitats, not to restore working boats for members of the public to visit, not to give schoolchildren the opportunity to experience boating for themselves while helping to look after their local environment, but just to keep the waterways navigable in order that a tiny minority of people can indulge in an expensive hobby (or enjoy an eccentric way of life)? Quite.

 

And surely the more of these 'public-facing' (non-boater-specific) projects the CaRT can fund through charitable donations, the more of its state funding and commercial income will be available to spend on projects that benefit us directly as boaters?

[carlt]

 

Ferrets?

What's that noise? Only the sound of old boatmen, spinning in their graves.

I'm guessing you don't know that "Ferret" is an old boat once worked by "old boatmen".

Edited January 31, 2014 by carlt

[Nightwatch]

I have been led to believe that voles are not all that desirable to have chomping away at the canal sides.

 

I may be misled though.

[Graham Davis]

 

 

Nigel- I wholeheartedly agree with you on this one. Like I have said before, there are plans a foot, in the not to distance future, to effectively close some stretches of Canal to Boat traffic.

Do you have proof, or is this scaremongering?

[magictime]

I'm guessing you don't know that "Ferret" is an old boat once worked by "old boatmen".

 

Yes, but they'll be letting members of the public on board! And it's the same with this workboat. Can you imagine - our charity spending our money on involving a bunch of plebs in our waterways? These are people who don't own even one boat! The little swines had bloody well better do a good job with the litter picking and graffiti removal, that's all I can say. I'm so angry I can barely face this plate of otter stew.

[Paul G2]

 

 

 

When you talk about 'the primary remit that BW were once entrusted with', I assume you're talking about the sort of waterways management, maintenance and restoration that relates specifically to navigation? But it would be absurd, in 2014, to treat the waterways network solely as a transport network for boats to move around. Their future depends on our recognising their wider value to the 99% of people who are not boaters - as cycle routes, as places to go jogging or for a picnic, as a 'living museum', as wildlife habitats, as an educational resource, etc.

 

How much money would you expect to come pouring into a waterways charity that promised not to create wildlife habitats, not to restore working boats for members of the public to visit, not to give schoolchildren the opportunity to experience boating for themselves while helping to look after their local environment, but just to keep the waterways navigable in order that a tiny minority of people can indulge in an expensive hobby (or enjoy an eccentric way of life)? Quite.

 

And surely the more of these 'public-facing' (non-boater-specific) projects the CaRT can fund through charitable donations, the more of its state funding and commercial income will be available to spend on projects that benefit us directly as boaters?

 

Here's the thing, you seem to think that that tiny minority of people who navigate the waterways should bear the main burden of maintaining those waterways, not only for their benefit, but for the benefit of everyone. Where is the fairness in that?

 

Your waterways are a national treasure. Why should they be supported only by user fees and handouts? As you so aptly point out, many people other than boaters enjoy the waterways. Those people all pay taxes - they pay taxes to drive there; they pay taxes to eat there; they pay taxes to sleep there. All those taxes should be going to the canals to maintain them. The people that throng to the waterways create jobs in the local economies. Those jobs, and the people doing them, are taxed in multiple ways. Those taxes should go towards the canals. When you look at the canals in the broader aspect of their overall contribution to society and the economy, it seems obvious that they should be maintained as part of the national infrastructure and not by a Trust with a limited budget.

[carlt]

 

I'm so angry I can barely face this plate of otter stew.

You have the same recipe book as me then!

 

[NigelMoore]

The wider value to the 99% who have no obligation to contribute to the 66% shortfall in maintenance, is due in no small part to the charm of observably navigable waterways as distinct from feral wildlife parks.

 

We don’t need a CaRT at all, nor any public contributions, to allow the waterways to slide into a purely visual amenity and wildlife habitat.

[Ronniesonic]

 

Do you have proof, or is this scaremongering?

Fair question Graham. You probably have worked out that I do not have any direct proof but I am not scaremongering.

However, I can say the source is linked to Government. They write & research well & are very busy pre 12pm on Wednesday's.

Also a good friend of mine! Never usually says anything about their work, for obvious reasons but knows im a Canal nut so gave me a few cryptic 'heads up'.

 

Do the maintenace maths & remember we are the elite having boats, paying a trivial amount for the priveledge...... I will leave leave it at that for now.

[Graham Davis]

So in other words, Ronniesonic, you are scaremongering!!

[magictime]

Here's the thing, you seem to think that that tiny minority of people who navigate the waterways should bear the main burden of maintaining those waterways, not only for their benefit, but for the benefit of everyone.

 

Not at all. I just don't think we should begrudge the fact that the CaRT spends a certain amount of money on projects such as restoring a historic working boat, or helping schools to create new wildlife habitats beside its waters, rather than focusing narrowly on "the primary remit that BW were once entrusted with" (i.e., presumably, enabling navigation).

 

Your waterways are a national treasure. Why should they be supported only by user fees and handouts? As you so aptly point out, many people other than boaters enjoy the waterways. Those people all pay taxes - they pay taxes to drive there; they pay taxes to eat there; they pay taxes to sleep there. All those taxes should be going to the canals to maintain them. The people that throng to the waterways create jobs in the local economies. Those jobs, and the people doing them, are taxed in multiple ways. Those taxes should go towards the canals. When you look at the canals in the broader aspect of their overall contribution to society and the economy, it seems obvious that they should be maintained as part of the national infrastructure and not by a Trust with a limited budget.

 

We don't disagree. My whole point was that the value of the waterways is much wider than just letting boaters go boating.

 

 

The wider value to the 99% who have no obligation to contribute to the 66% shortfall in maintenance, is due in no small part to the charm of observably navigable waterways as distinct from feral wildlife parks.

 

We don’t need a CaRT at all, nor any public contributions, to allow the waterways to slide into a purely visual amenity and wildlife habitat.

 

Again, we don't disagree. I have no problem with the CaRT spending most of its money on things that have to do directly with navigation, in order to preserve "observably navigable waterways". I just don't see why it's a problem if it also seeks charitable donations to fund projects, like the ones mentioned, that don't directly have to do with navigation, but rather reflect the waterways' wider value as a wildlife habitat, an educational resource, etc.

[adam1uk]

 

Here's the thing, you seem to think that that tiny minority of people who navigate the waterways should bear the main burden of maintaining those waterways, not only for their benefit, but for the benefit of everyone. Where is the fairness in that?

 

Your waterways are a national treasure. Why should they be supported only by user fees and handouts? As you so aptly point out, many people other than boaters enjoy the waterways. Those people all pay taxes - they pay taxes to drive there; they pay taxes to eat there; they pay taxes to sleep there. All those taxes should be going to the canals to maintain them. The people that throng to the waterways create jobs in the local economies. Those jobs, and the people doing them, are taxed in multiple ways. Those taxes should go towards the canals. When you look at the canals in the broader aspect of their overall contribution to society and the economy, it seems obvious that they should be maintained as part of the national infrastructure and not by a Trust with a limited budget.

 

You seem to be under the impression that only boaters pay for CRT. Roughly, a third of the income comes from grants from the government, a third from boaters (licences etc), and third from other business income.

[johnthebridge]

I'm guessing you don't know that "Ferret" is an old boat once worked by "old boatmen".

Wrong. I knew it when old man Clark had it, with Bolinder, some 40 years ago. I bet he'd be spinning in his grave as well.

27 grand of public money is apparently "funding" the restoration (the total cost being?) of a boat that'll be used how? 27 grand? Does nobody ever question these absurd sums? I'm obviously too old and out of touch! My apologies.

Ah well. Time for me Horlicks and bed.

[magictime]

Wrong. I knew it when old man Clark had it, with Bolinder, some 40 years ago. I bet he'd be spinning in his grave as well.

27 grand of public money is apparently "funding" the restoration (the total cost being?) of a boat that'll be used how? 27 grand? Does nobody ever question these absurd sums? I'm obviously too old and out of touch! My apologies.

Ah well. Time for me Horlicks and bed.

 

It's not 'public' (taxpayers') money, it's money that's been donated in response to a charitable appeal (and, now, by the People's Postcode Lottery). And old man Clark must have been a very unusual fellow if he'd be 'spinning in his grave' at the thought that members of the public would one day chip in to see his old boat restored and preserved for future generations rather than being left to rot. As to what's so absurd about the idea that it might cost £27,000 to restore an 88-year-old, 72 foot, part-wooden boat with a traditional boatman's cabin and a very unusual engine... I don't see it.

[carlt]

27 grand? Does nobody ever question these absurd sums? I'm obviously too old and out of touch!

£27 grand is peanuts for a proper, museum quality rebuild and I would expect that to be a small proportion of the final sum.

 

How much new boat would you expect for £27k?

[mango]

Canal & River Trust scoops Charity of the Year award

<snip>

Let us hope that the success continues for CRT and everyone interested in the canal system rather than constantly whinging. Even NBW has not made negative comments (yet).

[johnthebridge]

 

It's not 'public' (taxpayers') money, it's money that's been donated in response to a charitable appeal (and, now, by the People's Postcode Lottery). And old man Clark must have been a very unusual fellow if he'd be 'spinning in his grave' at the thought that members of the public would one day chip in to see his old boat restored and preserved for future generations rather than being left to rot. As to what's so absurd about the idea that it might cost £27,000 to restore an 88-year-old, 72 foot, part-wooden boat with a traditional boatman's cabin and a very unusual engine... I don't see it.

 

 

Taxpayers'? Who mentioned them? By public money, I had inferred cash given by the public, an external source, as opposed to income raised by other perhaps more traditional business methods.

I was merely commenting on how these large sums of cash get wasted on subjects that really don't warrant it. Hedges? Otters? Boats "preserved for future generations"? Oh please! What, preserved like the boats at the Gloucester museum that had vast sums spent on them, and then lay for years, rotting and unattended? Preserved, like all the historic items donated to that museum by the "public", including my brother-in-law and me, which then disappeared like snow in Summer? Like the boats at Ellesmere Port? Apart from a tiny number of "enthusiasts", nobody in the future will give a flying fig if yet another Josher gets restored or not and it's absurd because, as ridiculous as it sounds to me, £27,000 will only contribute in a small way to the overall cost of the work. That is my point. As happens so often these days, nobody ever says, "HOW MUCH?", when huge sums of money are bandied around or wasted. It's a charity, so that's alright then. Forgive my jaded view-I regard the people who run CaRT in the same way as I do politicians. And don't get me started on the absurd amount of taxpayer's (yes, that's right!) money wasted on "enforcement". An unholy alliance I know, but I reckon old Tom Rolt AND Robert Aikman must also be spinning in their graves.....

Just call me a miserable old pessimist, ignore me and move onwards and upwards to the bright sunlit uplands!

£27 grand is peanuts for a proper, museum quality rebuild and I would expect that to be a small proportion of the final sum.

 

How much new boat would you expect for £27k?

Judging by current prices, around ten feet? On reflection, maybe eight.

If you'd read my post properly, you might have seen my included question- "The total cost being?".