Tell it like it is...

MANY boaters, worried about the transition of British Waterways to Canal & River Trust,  are now writing to the Charity Commissioners telling of their concerns, such as the one below, that Simon Greer has kindly allowed us to reproduce.

Dear Sir/ Madam,
I understand you are shortly to consider an application from British Waterways to become a National Charity. The Canal & River Trust.

As a canal restorer, a boat dweller and also an ex-council member of two national boating organisations RBOA and NABO, I ask that unless and until you receive some basic assurances, written 'in tablets of stone', from the applicant that you see fit to reject the application.

I place great emphasis on 'the tablets of stone' because other assurances give by BW to boaters and to various Parliamentary Select Committees have proven not to be worth the paper they are written on.

BW in my experience has a modus operandi where it says what is necessary to secure what it wants and then knowingly ignores the same when it suits, even denying that the undertakings were ever given. This can apply even when BW is presented with the written record.

As boat licence payers, tax payers and in my case restorer, we resent paying BW's bills whilst being abused.

I have been a paying customer of BW for 37 years. In that time I have found BW to be more concerned with property development than the well-being of our canal network.

I have found BW difficult, litigious, profligate and often anti boater, particularly towards boat dwellers such as myself and my partner Mary.

We spend much of our time under the threat of licence withdrawal, boat confiscation and much new BW expense just to continue maintaining an innocuous lifestyle.

Boat dwellers are generally amongst the least resourced, most vulnerable of BW customers.  It is estimated there are as many as 10,000 to 12,000 of us, spread across 2,000 miles of canal.

If I read the temperature correctly we uniformly feel our waterlords are not our friends, and worse still our biggest problem. BW does not bat for boaters. It bats for itself and its inflated salaries.

It seems the same contentious management will remain in place if a new charity is created. I ask if we boaters can restore the canals why can we not be given a bigger hand in managing what we have restored. Surely that would reflect the spirit of a new waterway charity.

In my book organisations earn charitable status. Nothing I have witnessed of BW on the canal could equate to earning charitable status. Be assured, BW is masterful at self promotion and indeed spends considerable amounts of its annual subsidy on PR, lobbying those who might scrutinise its operation that it is doing a good job and is fit for purpose. Be assured there are two sides to this coin.

Only by being on the water will you see the other side. Mary and I live on the water. So the assurances I seek are that the new charity shall:
1) Be lawfully required to honour and adhere to all past assurances given to Parliament, Boating Organisations and individuals. Many of us have worked long and hard to secure them.

2) Shall not be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act/s.

3) Shall not be given powers to create new Legislation without approval of those it may affect.

4) They shall not bully, pillory or otherwise compromise their liveaboard community.

5) Shall be subject to the Human Rights legislation.

6) That it shall be required to maintain water depth and have boat dweller representation on any new charity management.

Hoping you find this helpful. Thank you.

Simon Greer.
Canal boat Arabia. Macclesfield Canal. Cheshire.

[The address of the Charity Commission is  PO Box 1227, Liverpool. L69 3UG.]