Canals on the Today programme

Robin Evans, chief executive of British Waterways, and environmentalist Paul Kingsnorth were talking about Britain's canals on the Today programme this morning. I sense Paul Kingsnorth wanted to talk more about freight on canals, but he never really made his point. John Humphrys talked to them. Here's a transcript of the interview:



John Humphrys If you were writing a history of the Industrial Revolution in this country 200 years ago you'd have to include the development of the waterways. Canals played a vital role, which is why one of their pioneers is included on a new series of stamps being issued by the Royal Mail to mark the bicentenary. But do they still have a role, apart from being somewhere nice to live near or play on? Robin Evans is the Chief Executive of the British Waterways Association (sic), and he says they do. Paul Kingsnorth is an environmentalist and he's written a book called "Real England". He's a bit dubious. Erm, Robin Evans, how ... in what sense can canals still make a commercial ... an industrial contribution?

Robin Evans You say that they're just places to live and work by, but that's exactly what they have become - they are wonderful places to live, work and play by, and that's where they do contribute, because they have become the place of choice to be by, they are immensely attractive places to walk and enjoy, enormous numbers of people...

JH But they always have been, I mean that's the thing isn't it, they've always been a bit like that, I thought you were going beyond that a bit and saying we can make use of these things.

RE A great way in which canals are now being relevant to society is: if you want to reduce your carbon footprint, or are worried about the exchange rate, you should have a canal holiday. If you want to look on the internet and see where you could have a canal holiday, chances are that the information you're receiving is coming through the fibre-optic cable that's laid in our towpath. If you happen to be doing that in Bristol, and you're making a cup of tea, chances are that the water that made that cup of tea came from our canal, because we supply 60% of the water into Bristol (JH Do you really?) Tomorrow I'm announcing that we'll have 25 hydro-electric schemes on our waterway, creating enough electricity for 45,000 houses, so next year, your computer may even be powered by water from the canal, so in many ways they are being much more relevant to society. And that's the secret to the canals: they keep adapting and changing to the needs of society, and that's why we are so fortunate to have so many miles of open, attractive canal that 300 million people use every year.

JH Paul Kingsnorth, are you impressed with that?

Paul Kingsnorth Well, it's interesting, I think there's a clash of visions here. I actually think that the canals have a big role to play but I think it's a slightly different role to the one that British Waterways has in mind. There's a huge role for freight on the canals actually now and British Waterways is actually mandated by the government to increase the amount of freight on the canals; and there's a huge role also for affordable housing. Now this is interesting: people live on canalboats all over the country, it's a very affordable way of life...

JH Is it really? By the time you've had to pay your mooring, and had to fix them and paint them and all that stuff?

PK (laughs) Moorings are more expensive than they used to be but it's considerably more ... considerably cheaper in most places than houses .. and the problem we've got actually is that British Waterways is a public body which runs a public asset which is our canals, and they do many good things with them, but they're also really mandated to act like a private body and what they're doing now is trying to make as much commercial gain out of the canals as possible, and one of the ways they're doing that is selling off a lot of land, a lot of waterside assets for housing, and selling off boatyards and wharves, and this is really (a) changing the character of the canal in quite a negative way I think, and (b) it's making it harder to do these things like live on a boat on a canal and actually get the freights going.

JH That's a serious point, Mr. Evans, there.

RE Well, just look at the figures. There are 33,000 boats on our waterway at the moment, that's more boats than we've ever had since the Industrial Revolution...

JH Yeah, but is that number going to start falling as you sell off the moorings and all that kind of thing, do the kind of things that Paul Kingsnorth has described?

RE Far from it. Boating has been growing by about 4% in recent years...

JH Has been, but now you're changing it. That's his point.

RE Well, we've been in charge of the waterways for 200 years, so I think that any changes come up we don't have to erm, you know, that's the economic situation. I think the point he makes about affordable housing on boating.. Boating can contribute to people living on the waterways: there's a small community living on the waterways, we relish them, we love them, we want to have them on the waterways. But they can't solve the housing problem of this country. What they can do...

JH But what about building houses on the waterway... they're very close ... and selling off the property, selling off the land?

RE Yes, well we're owners of public asset, we have plots of land in city centres, which could be worth 2 or 3 million pounds and we're getting 2 or 3 hundred pounds of rent from them. I think I'd be here answering your questions if I were sitting on those doing nothing with them ...

JH Well, there you are Paul Kingsnorth, they've got to look after ... they've got to provide a return, haven't they?

PK This is precisely the problem I think. What British Waterways have done over the last ten years is they've got heavily into the property market, and we've all seen what's happened to the property market now, the bottom's fallen out of it. Let me give you an example from where I live in Oxford: (JH Very quick) There's a boatyard called Castle Mill it's the last publically accessible boatyard on the canal, British Waterways sold it off to a private developer who wanted to put a large number of executive flats on it. Everyone in the community was against it, the boaters, the council, it was rejected the planning, the boatyard has been sitting there now, there's nothing built on it because the property market's collapsed (JH All right) ..it's been sitting there empty surrounded by barbed wire...

JH Ten seconds Robin Evans.

RE Well, I think all those people, I see them every day, who love living by the water...

JH That specific case, just a quick thought on that?

RE It's a great scheme and people will enjoy living at Castle Mill Boatyard into the future.

JH One day maybe. Right, Robin Evans and Paul Kingsnorth, thank you both very much.





Paul Kingsnorth's latest book is Real England