Improved maintenance for the Thames?
I REALLY wonder if those at the IWA are completely blinkered or have an hidden agenda, writes T. Lang.
Together (and that is the right word) with CaRT it is pressing for the takeover of the Environmental Waterways, telling the waterways minister that 'transfer of these navigations to Canal & River Trust would allow these waterways to benefit from improved maintenance, third party funding opportunities and the economies of scale to be gained from being part of a larger navigation authority'.
Nothing failing
I do not know of all the EA's waterways, but have cruised the Thames time and time again over 25 years, never once being held-up by anything failing, the only time when it was in flood, which is something that happens to all rivers and is of course beyond anything anyone can do.
As another of your contributors recently told, the lock gates are well balanced and don't swing open thus needing a paddle being opened at the other gates to hold them closed.
Now look at the waterways that CaRT already maintain. Two major ones closed 'indefinitely', closure after closure of waterways through things failing, I remember three canals shut in one day. And we hear that it is spending £7 millions less this year than last on winter maintenance, that itself being less than the year before.
'Improved maintenance'
Yet the IWA says the Environmental Agency waters will 'benefit from improved maintenance'. Just how stupid is that?
I am now writing the the Waterways Miinister, Dr Thérèse Coffey MP, to tell her the facts, and if you are a regular user of the Environmental Waterways such as the Thames and want to see it still well maintained, I suggest you do the same:
House of Commons, London, SW1A 0AA, Telephone: 020 7219 7164. Email: