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DEFRA (the Department of Environment, Food and Rural
Affairs, has announced massive cuts to its grant-in-aid to British Waterways
(BW) and the Environment Agency (EA). These are certain to have a massive
impact on the maintenance of the waterways of England and Wales. The Scottish
waterways are expected to suffer much less, since the Scottish Executive's
£10.9 million grant to BW will remain unchanged.
In the case of the Environment Agency, the latest cuts to
its budget are going to be applied to other parts of its organisation than the
relatively small department that looks after its navigable rivers, so any
increased threat here is longer-term rather than immediate. But before this all
happened, the EA Navigation budget was already subject to severe cuts which
they propose to cover by a large increase in thier boat licence fees.
So the immediate effects are going to be felt on British
Waterways' canals and rivers.
How big are the cuts?
BW was told in March 2006 that its budget for the financial
year 2006-7 was to be cut by 5% (or about £3.1 million). Later a further
7.5% (£4.5 million) of cuts were added with the possibility of a further
cut of 2.5% (£1.5 million) this Autumn. These cuts total 15% of BW's
grant, or about £9 million out of the £62.5 million originally due
to them from DEFRA. The Department has advised BW that their grant is likely to
be cut further in the years 2008-2011 with a possible total of a loss of
£60 million over five years.
The DEFRA and Scottish Executive grants are not the whole of
BW's income. It also generates earnings of its own from boat licences,
moorings, angling rights and its property portfolio and receives
special-purpose grants from some local authorities and funding agencies
including the lottery.
Why has it happened?
One reason why so many of the waterways community are angry
about the cuts is that their cause is nothing whatsoever to do with the
waterways. Owing to what the Inland Waterways Association has called "apparent
calamitous mismanagement" within DEFRA, that Department has failed to meet its
obligations to make payments to farmers under the European Union's agricultural
policy. For that they have incurred a large fine* from the EU. DEFRA has also
over-spent substantially on the collections side of that policy and on other
projects, and has incurred large unexpected costs over the precautions against
Avian Flu. The Treasury is refusing (or possibly hasn't even been asked - see
the postscript below) to come up with any more money to rescue DEFRA, which is
therefore finding the necessary money by cutting the budgets for all its other
areas of responsibility, including BW and the EA.
* Technically it's not a fine, but a withdrawal of some
of the grant due if the payments to farmers are late. See our
Facts from Hansard page for the rather
complicated details.
What will the effect be?
It's far too early to tell in detail, as BW is still working
out what it can do within its reduced resources. It has indicated that it may
need to delay or cancel some of its promised support to canal restoration
schemes, close some waterways, cut its staffing and increase boat licence fees,
possibly by 30%. So not only will boat-owners and hirers end up footing part of
the bill for DEFRA's mishandling of the farm payments, but anglers, towpath
walker and cyclists are likely to suffer reductions in their amenity areas and
owners of homes and businesses who were attracted to their present location by
a view of a well-maintained canal with moving boats will find the scene
replaced by a waterway degerating back towards a muddy, stagnant ditch.
Those of us who have been around the waterways for a long
time are aware of how much progress has been made jointly by BW, local
authorities and the voluntary sector to restore and revive Britain's canals and
rivers. We remember the days when, even on well-used canals like the Grand
Union, huge lengths of towpath were unusable or simply missing, having fallen
into the "cut". We thought those days had passed. Now it seems they are all too
likely to return.
Recently-restored canals always seem to need several years
further work after their formal re-opening before their restoration can be said
to be safe and sustainable. The Rochdale Canal is very much a case in point. If
canals like this now fail and have to be closed because there isn't the money
to do the necessary work then there will be some extremely unhappy faces among
the volunteers who did much of the early work and the funding agencies to paid
for the last big effort leading to the re-opening.
When the canal were nationalised in 1948, many of them were
suffering from major arrears in maintenance. It is only in recent years that
BW, with Government funding for the purpose, has caught up with at least the
safety-related aspects of these arrears. This substantial gain is also now at
risk.
On EA waterways, the immediate effect is a huge hike in boat
licence fees to cover the gap between a reduced grangt and the work that needs
doing, particularly during this year's winter stoppages.
Postscript
On the newsgroup uk.rec.waterways on 13 October ,
Will Chapman wrote:
"How much is this fine, is it really going to be imposed,
when? Is the fine levied on Defra or Government itself. Is the rumour true that
Gordon Brown has told Defra that they must absorb any fine out of their own
budget? "
To which Richard Fairhurst replied:
"Not according to Robert Lowson* at the meeting. I've not
got my notes with me, but his quote was something like 'David Miliband took
the political decision not to ask the Treasury to fund the
shortfall'. In other words, DEFRA didn't even get as far as asking Gordon
Brown."
* who represented DEFRA at the BW AGM on 12 October.
Ed. |
