New brooms new regions

LIKE Victor, I too remember the many changes of the regions under the various chief executives, writes T. Lang.

I believe the worst was when Robin Evans took over and decided the regions were not to his liking, and not only moved the actual areas but moved their head offices, and subsequently lost some of the then British Waterways best people. I remember the offices at Devizes being moved elsewhere many miles away, and many of its staff refusing to move including its exceptional manager.

Strange move indeed

At that time there was the move of the headquarters at Nottingham to Newark, a very strange move indeed when you think of the number of waterways around Nottingham whilst there is just the Trent in Newark.  Again many refused to make the daily round trip so left.

The present chief executive has already had one attempt at moving the regions and/or combining them, but here we have yet another move that we are informed will put 240 jobs at risk. What a way to install confidence in his staff.

Wellbeing

If this is the much acclaimed 'wellbeing' strategy, it is certainly not starting at home. But what does it mean anyway? There is certainly no wellbeing with the canals with, as many of you will remember, 12 being closed in one week. That of course results in a total lack of 'wellbeing' for boaters. And there is very little 'wellbeing' for the millions (how many has it gone up to now?) of towpath visitors who risk life and limb from speeding towpath cyclists.

I believe Victor hits the nail on the head when he calls it Cart Speak.