British Waterways creates head of community engagement post

14 May 2010

British Waterways (BW) has established a senior management position specifically looking at community engagement across the 2,200-mile network of canals and navigable rivers it cares for. Caroline Killeavy has been appointed head of community engagement with a remit to grow the number of people volunteering across the waterways and so lay the foundation for any future transition of BW into the third sector.

BW currently benefits from 16,000 volunteer days each year, and Caroline will lead a team developing new ways to get more local people interested in helping out across the waterways. She will take up her new position from 1 July 2010.

Having been a senior manager at BW since 1996, including most recently as head of customer services, Caroline has extensive experience in waterway regeneration and community engagement projects. During her time at BW she has been a founding director of Nottingham Waterside and was also involved in establishing Lincolnshire Waterways Partnership. She also led the national team that doubled the volunteering activity in one year in 2008/9.

Caroline said: “The canal network includes the country’s third largest estate of listed buildings and is a valuable wildlife resource that is home to numerous SSSIs. Our canals and rivers flow through hundreds of communities and provide an important health and leisure resource. Over the next few years we want to encourage more community ownership of the waterways which will mean lots of opportunities to get involved in something fun, really rewarding and of considerable benefit to the community and its waterways heritage.” Caroline’s team is currently promoting local community waterway adoption schemes, canal ranger and lock keeping opportunities to compliment existing staff, as well as a host of educational and heritage based volunteering opportunities.

Ends

For further media information please call Fran Read on 020 7985 7276 / 07796 610 427

Notes to editors

• British Waterways is the public corporation that cares for a 2,200-mile network of canals and navigable rivers across the country and works with a broad range of public, private and voluntary sector partners to improve the social, economic and environmental benefits of the inland waterways.

For more information visit
www.britishwaterways.co.uk