Waterways For The 21st Century
10 September 2008
British Waterways' Annual Meeting in Birmingham this autumn (8 October 2008) will include, for the first time, an open panel debate on the future role and funding of waterways in England and Wales in the 21st Century. This will be the first step towards a public consultation across Great Britain next year on British Waterways' ten-year business strategy.
The debate will bring together a range of experts and stakeholders to explore how the network of historic inland waterways in England and Wales cared for by British Waterways fits within the public policy agenda for regeneration, tourism, transport, heritage, the environment, health and quality of life, and how they might best be used and paid for into the future. The panel will bring together experts from a range of backgrounds, including Heritage Lottery Fund chief executive, Carole Souter, leading environmentalist, John Gummer MP, chair of the Inland Waterways Advisory Council, John Edmonds and waterways journalist, Richard Fairhurst.
The importance of the debate has been reinforced by an external review, by consultants KPMG, into options for securing a better long-term financial position for British Waterways' 200-year old network. The review, which can be downloaded from http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/listening-to-you/consultations-and-reviews/bw-status-options-review, validates British Waterways' 'steady state' maintenance model as a reasonable starting position for it to consider future funding requirements and recognises the organisation’s success in generating new investment for the network while also driving greater efficiencies.
The review also backs up British Waterways' assessment of a financial gap between what should be spent on waterway infrastructure and services and the likely levels of commercial and national funding available. KPMG believe that the gap, relating to BW's network in England and Wales, could potentially be up to £29m per year. The review advises that a change in British Waterways' institutional status to give it greater borrowing powers could enable it to grow its long-term commercial revenues, but would incur considerable financial risk without, in the medium to longterm, fully closing the funding gap. British Waterways will be further considering KPMG's options for modernising the organisation's governance, ahead of next year's public consultation.
"The historic waterways are no strangers to funding shortfalls and as they get older the costs of maintaining them will inevitably go up," says British Waterways’ chairman, Tony Hales. "Nevertheless the last six decades have seen enormous and positive change on the network which is now more widely used and delivering more public benefits than ever before. Its success has in large part been down to the way it has been adapted to modern life and been reinvented to meet the needs of society without losing its intrinsic charm and character. The questions we need to ask now are what kind of waterways do we want in the future and how might they best be funded?
"The KPMG review validates the work that we have done and gives clear evidence of the success of our integrated business approach by which we generate greater investment in the waterways through good commercial stewardship. At the same time it underlines the financial challenges that lie ahead and gives us a platform on which to build our future business strategy, a strategy which must clearly evolve from where we are now. The network is not perfect, but the record investment in it over recent years means it is in better shape than for generations. Our challenge now is to find the right model to safeguard it in the future."
Options being considered by British Waterways following the KPMG report include:
• better identification of the different local and national public benefits created by British
Waterways’ network;
• modernising the organisation’s corporate governance;
• driving further efficiency improvements;
• opportunities for further increasing commercial and third party incomes.
The strategy emerging from this work will be subject to a public consultation and views will be sought from a variety of stakeholders, individuals and partner organisations before options and recommendations are put to Ministers in Defra and the Scottish Government. The consultation, which will cover a range of options for the management of British Waterways’ 2,200-mile network of canals, rivers, docks and reservoirs, will begin next year. For more information on British Waterways visit www.britishwaterways.co.uk
ENDS
For media enquiries contact:
Ed Fox, 020 7985 7226, 07801 049829, edward.fox@britishwaterways.co.uk
Notes to editors
• British Waterways is a not-for-dividend, public corporation which cares a 2,200-mile network of the nation's historic network of canals, rivers and docks. Sixty years after they were brought into public ownership the waterways in its care are now enjoyed by more people and used for a wider variety of uses than at any other time in their history.
• British Waterways, with the backing of Defra, commissioned the £350,000 review from KPMG to investigate whether a change to its institutional status could provide a better long term financial framework for these waterways.
• British Waterways' Annual Meeting will be held at Austin Court, 80 Cambridge Street,
Birmingham B1 2NP from 10.30am to 3.30pm on 8 October 2008. For details contact
annual.meeting@britishwaterways.co.uk
• The potential financial gap indicated by KPMG relates only to British Waterways' network in England and Wales, not Scotland