Dear friends

At the end of August this year, NABO invited members, boat owners and hirers to respond to either or both of our online surveys:

British Waterways' Waterways Condition Survey 2009

and

Other Agencies' Waterways Condition Survey 2009.

The surveys closed in November and John has prepared the reports and summaries.

 

In association with the Residential Boat Owners Association (RBOA) and The Boating Association, we have just published the detailed analysis in two reports on our web site:

British Waterways' Waterways Condition Survey

and

Other Agencies Waterways Condition Survey

This has also been released to the press. We will be commenting and supporting this in December to get the best publicity that we can.

Before publishing this week, John Slee and I had a meeting with Vince Moran and Caroline Killeavy. They welcomed the report, and even asked John if he would do it again next year!

We talked with BW for a couple of hours about the content, the details of the repairs needed, and also the issues of getting boaters involved, and safety behaviours.

They undertook to:

• respond to the press about it (not yet seen)
• go through all the major issues, use it to guide their plans for next year and make a response by area against each item.
• They also wanted us to follow up on near misses to get more information so that they can investigate.

Overall John and I found it a very positive meeting with no resistance or denial. Vince said to us that were continuing to fund the maintenance at less than 'steady state'.

So why are we doing all this if there is violent agreement between us and BW about the condition of the waterway?

Robin Evans still says in public that the the Waterways have never been in better condition. He even got the Minister to say it in Parliament at the recent debate. He has to justify this in the face of boater opinion such as this survey and the SOS campaign. We know of course from his side he is tasked (and targetted) with increasing visitor numbers to the waterways with the agreement that if he doesn't do this then there will never be general support for public and local authority funding. It is a balance to strike, but it is clear from our point of view, the time is over for denial over repairs. The good thing is that the cash amounts needed are not large in Government terms. Every week Gordon is spending billions of something or other. We only need small money in his terms, and that has to be our target going to the election.

The other aspect is how the waterway spends the money that it has. I suggest that this can be a positive teamwork effort, working with agencies so that frivolous expenditure is avoided, and volunteer help contributes where it can. We are and will continue to work hard with agencies to get this team work going and there are some really good things happening. Success breeds success. Would you give your money to BW if there is customer disagreement about how it is spent? Of course you wouldn't, so we must turn this around as part of the deal. Then any new money will be seen as good value and appreciated.

Watch out for the story line and tell us what you think.

And thank you for taking the time to do the survey!

All the best for Christmas and the New Year.

David