In The Times on Saturday there was an article by Teena Lyons headed "Battle is on to save our canals". Ms Lyons notes that the proposal to turn BW into a "National Trust-style mutual organisation" was not implemented before the general election. "There are now fears that the 200-year-old network could have its funding slashed or even be privatised", she writes.
Teena Lyons quotes from Griff Rhys Jones: "Canals have suffered from neglect for the best part of half a century and enormous efforts have been made to open them up and create a successful tourist industry. They should be encouraged."
She talks to Paul Ost from Colchester, who has set up a Facebook group "Save our Canals and Waterways". Kennet and Avon lock keeper Terry Kemp makes an appearance, as does former farmer Rob Parton, who sold his dairy herd and turned a field into the 147-berth Aqueduct Marina on the Middlewich Branch at Church Minshull.
After reporting all the usual "canals have changed my life" stuff, Ms Lyons suddenly says something very odd. "Their main function may now be leisure, but devotees hope that modern engineering will make them relevant to transport again. Their hopes are centred on projects such as the Falkirk Wheel..." Nothing she writes backs up this claim.
I can't find this article online, so I can't link to it, sorry.
The IWA has just revealed that Richard Benyon MP, vice president of the Kennet and Avon Canal Trust, has been appointed Waterways Minister. A man with a canal connection! This must be good news!
photo: Oxford Canal at Thrupp, November 2008
2 comments:
Oh goodness, Halfie. It would be devastating if the canals were to be privatised or put on the back burner. I do hope Mr Benyon can keep the support for the waterways active.
But then, being overly pedantic, most canals have been privatised for far longer than they have been nationalised, and if you want to cherrypick your historical points, they were maintained far better in private hands than in public!
That said, though I'm not sure how privatisation would work, I'm not completely convinced that it would spell the death of canals. Maybe I'm being too optimistic, but a private company would have to keep its customers satisfied with the state of maintenance and the "service" that they get- there is, of course, no monopoly on canals!- and might well be more answerable to the public, rather than the monolithic bureaucracy we have now.
Whilst I am old enough to remember privatisation, maybe I was still too young to view the results fully and so have far less abhorance of the idea than those who were able to fully understand it!
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