The Chairman's Page:
Waterways Funding Crisis

The Petition form which hopefully dropped out of your CUTTINGS as you opened the envelope, and the item on our back page, are part of a growing campaign to reverse the cuts imposed on the bodies which run our waterways by DEFRA, the Government department under which British Waterways and the Environment Agency are administered.

It seems invidious that the Government as a whole is not taking responsibility, through its Contingency Fund, for the main factors which have landed DEFRA in the crisis it's in. The failure by DEFRA's Rural Payment Agency to pay the subsidies due to our farmers is largely because the computer system used to administer the subsidies doesn't work properly. That's about par for the course for all the major computerisation projects the Government has brought in as part of its modernisation programme. The other factor is that DEFRA has had to put in place costly measures to combat the spread of Avian Flu which was being forecast to hit the country this year. If the Treasury's Contingency Fund is not there to pay for one-offs like Avian Flu and the inevitable glitches in large-scale computerisation programmes which are central Government imposed, then what is a Contingency Fund for?

SCARS has had much support and encouragement from British Waterways in its campaign to restore the Sankey. Its status as an Abandoned canal means that BW receives no money within its Grant for the time and energy expended in giving such support, but has managed to justify its involvement on the basis that there may be future returns from contracts to take part in any restoration which takes place (as in the St. Helens Eastside project), and in undertaking the maintenance of restored sections. Any growing business - and our canal system is that - needs to plan for its future in this way. Losing funding now also loses future income. Please support the Campaign to reverse these cuts.

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