Memorandum submitted by Simon Greer (BW
02)
1. It is with regret that I make this submission.
With over 30 years boating experience I've witnessed the injection
of a massive public subsidy into the canal network such that now
we have an over regulated, over managed, over blown water linear
theme park managed by an often well meaning but singularly inappropriate
overpaid management.
2. I am exhausted by the burden of ever
greater numbers of rules, regulation, controls and restrictions
brought to bear by BW for the simple act of owning, running and
maintaining a canal boat.
3. BW is more interested in Property development,
self aggrandisement and corporate survival than it is in looking
after boaters or canals. Consequently BW uses the number of millions
of visitors it attracts to its subsidised water theme park as
the yardstick of satisfactory performance above any other.
4. I believe BW has the wrong priorities,
is expensive, is self important and should have its wings clipped
as the price of its own delusion.
5. Below is the private submission I made
November 2006 to BW management that to the best of my knowledge
has disappeared into a black hole. It should be useful to DEFRA.
6. Robin Evans says BW is not a Housing
Authority. But why is it a water Linear Theme Park? Which is how
BW seems to run it. What is so wrong with a potentially green
Transport Network?
7. Robin Evans justifies his £250,000
salary, plus bonus, on the basis that BW needs the best management
and must therefore pay top rates for the best. But does BW need
top management to run a subsidised monopoly? And what makes him
believe he and his team are the best? Does anyone ever seek a
second opinion?
8. In any strictly commercial terms BW is
bankrupt. It consistently lives beyond its means and operates
annually at a £50 million + loss.
9. BW should live within its means just
like the rest of us. Pleading poverty doesn't wash anymore. Crying
"wolf" has become a BW lifestyle which I am obliged
to fund.
10. BW's spending should be examined by
the forensic scrutiny of the bankruptcy accountant. Cut the profligacy,
reduce the budget. Its what happens to any other bankrupt.
11. Instead we are invited to applaud expenditure
on a new literature, new signs, new computer systems and the like
and to accept in good faith a succession of price increases. On
two fronts as taxpayers and as a boat license purchasers many
boaters feel singularly aggrieved at footing the bills. As an
unpaid restorer in the 1960s, I feel aggrieved on three fronts.
PRIVATISATION
12. The Government's job, amongst many,
is to run schools, administer hospitals and seemingly fight wars.
Its brief does not include overseeing the running of the monopoly
subsidised linear theme park that BW has allowed our canal to
become. Imagine how thrilled Alton Towers would be if they too
could get their hands on annual subsidy of £50 million from
the taxpayer.
13. The judgment is if the Government doesn't
want "out" now it will want "out" in the future.
The only issue is when. Conceivably the Government has more important
things to do with taxpayers' cash and its management time.
14. So I believe it is entirely predictable
that any of the Utility Water Companies would buy BW for it reservoirs
and the fresh water they contain that now haemorrhages out to
sea. Indeed I have written to the COE of several asking if they
are considering this option and have received back at least one
positive reply. The water Utility Companies are keen to buy. To
receive possibly billions of pounds to lose a financial liability
must seem very attractive to the Government. It could be keen
to sell! The extent that BW pleads poverty just exacerbates the
Governments inclination to get rid of a peripheral and winging
responsibility. BW is good at pleading poverty, its certainly
peripheral.
15. Likewise the Government could name its
price. Perhaps £5 may be £10 billion, even more. It's
of little consequence to the buyers as they will simply recover
their spends by amortising the capital cost onto water bills over
20-30 years.
16. Since I see this development as almost
inevitable I ask that instead of a sale happening over boaters
heads our interests are paramount on any negotiation agenda. Who
is going to pitch for a good deal for boaters? Perhaps BW with
its top quality management skill could be persuaded to negotiate
a subsidy package that represents an ongoing reduced cost base
for boaters. I believe that unless this issue is faced and such
representation asked for, it will not naturally be given. BW can
we have your assurance you will do our bidding?
LEGISLATION
17. At various court cases involving boaters
and moorings, BW has pleaded that private entitlement to moor
alongside one's own land was rescinded by the 1968 Transport Act.
Yet BW claims today it needs new legislation to scotch private
historical rights that seemingly encumber its management of the
waterways. Logically such rights either exist and we boaters can
benefit from them or they don't. Since BW is wishing to eliminate
them again by new legislation, boaters are entitled to assume
they exist. So are the courts.
Simon Greer
January 2007
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