Memorandum submitted by Mrs Carolyn Finbow
(BW 58)
My background is as a long time leisure user
of the UK canal system who intends to make much greater use of
it on my near retirement. Britain's inland waterways offer a tranquil
way of seeing the countryside and towns near the canals thus keeping
many polluting cars off the roads.
Vital work to open up and restore old canals
and their locks extends this experience and new moorings create
valuable revenue not only to BW but to local communities where
they are sited. Growth in the use of the canals for freight creates
more opportunities for income to plough back into the system as
well as diverting freight away from our crowded roads.
I believe that long term the entire system should
be extended and upgraded and traffic encouraged to use it as a
major measure in our battle to reduce greenhouse emissions.
This seems so eminently sensible to me that
I find it very strange that DEFRA having made an error for which
they have had to pay dearly, should seek to reduce the budget
of an organisation which has made no such error, to balance their
own books!
Mrs Carolyn Finbow
March 2007
| 
