Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100
- 118)
MONDAY 26 FEBRUARY 2007
MR BILL
SCHLEGEL
Q100 Mr Jack: You will have gathered
from our earlier line of questioning that we see leisure as an
important opportunity for British Waterways to further develop
its revenue streams but, from the engineering point of view, what
are the barriers to progress in exploiting the further leisure
potential of the canal system?
Mr Schlegel: I suppose capacity
would have to be an issue, in that the canal network is a linear
network and, in terms of boat usage, it does not have an endless
capacity potential. The waterways, as they were developed, the
lock structures inevitably became a bottleneck for boat movement,
so there is not an endless growth in the numbers of boats that
will be able to transit up and down the waterway. I think on the
towpath and the built heritage aspects the thing that is likely
to curtail growth will just be capacity issues and whether people
still enjoy it or not. People will go to the waterways in many
cases for the relative peace and quiet, so I think it will be
driven more by the levels of enjoyment people have but, on a technical
basis, I think it will be one of simple capacity.
Q101 Mr Jack: Do you recall anybody
ever doing a study that said, "Well, here are the most popular
canal routes, this is where we are at the moment in terms of capacity
and therefore this is what we think the potential is"?
Mr Schlegel: I think the Inland
Waterways Amenities Advisory Council has done work on that over
the years. There are honey pots around the network, areas of the
network which are very busy. They tend to be in the South and
South West and increasingly in the North West but there are many
areas, as was mentioned already by IWA, in and around Birmingham
and the Black Country. The North East waterways are significantly
under-utilised and, of course, these areas also are often less
attractive and perhaps offer regeneration opportunities as well
as capacity potential.
Q102 Mr Jack: In your earlier comments
you said that the asset was in a much better state but the Committee
has received evidence from a company called Shire Cruisers, who
comment that small-scale, unexpected maintenance problems can
disrupt the smooth passage of their customers and that that acts
as a real constraint on the leisure and pleasure developments.[3]
That is a small-scale but important aspect of the engineering
side. Is that a problem that you recognise? Can you help us to
understand in quantity terms whether it is serious, annoying or
irritating, and are the kind of cuts that we have seen going to
make that frequency greater and therefore with a downside effect
on the leisure development?
Mr Schlegel: I think the nature
of the cuts, as has been described, tend to be perhaps most easily
achieved by cutting capital programmes. As I said earlier, my
other concern is that low-level maintenance activities will also
be affected. I mentioned very broadly the simple maintenance tasks
but things like lock gates, moving bridges. If the moving bridges
are not maintained well—and this does happen—they
get opened and they stick. For whatever reason, there is a failure,
mechanical or otherwise, and not only is the road user significantly
inconvenienced but the leisure user as well.
Q103 Mr Jack: Let us move into the
freight area. In the same way, to help us understand the constraints
on freight development, you heard us discussing earlier some of
the problems of realising the potential, but again, looking from
your point of view as an engineer, did you find during your time
at British Waterways being frustrated by saying there is real
potential here for daily regular freight movement to achieve the
much-vaunted wish to get things off the road on to the canal,
and then saying but we are missing the engineering, the physical
assets to do it?
Mr Schlegel: I have to say it
was generally the frustration of there not being the opportunity
for freight development, that the funding packages, the investment
requirement by the potential freight company was often belaboured
by whether or not this was a goal or whether or not they were
actually looking at road or rail as the alternatives. We have
heard about the freight facilities grant. That has only relatively
recently become available for waterway investment. It was primarily
created for rail freight investment. There are specific opportunities
that have been spoken about today about the Olympics, which is
a rather special scenario. Generally speaking, when freight opportunities
have been looked at, they have been looked at in the light of
existing infrastructure.
Q104 Mr Jack: The reason I ask that
question is that, looking at the canal network, by and large,
with perhaps some exceptions in South Yorkshire, by modern standards,
as a layman in these matters, I might say the opportunity must,
by definition, be limited, because our canals are narrow in comparison
with continental waterways, which, as I think the early evidence
illustrated, a 2,000-tonne movement was the optimum. I cannot
think of any canals, perhaps apart from South Yorkshire, where
you could get a 2,000 tonne unit on to it.
Mr Schlegel: It is just not feasible
at all without constructing a new waterway, because it would not
be the existing waterways. The existing waterways are special,
they are unique, they have a heritage and an environmental importance
that would prevail against complete redevelopment of the existing
system.
Q105 Mr Jack: Being realistic, apart
from special circumstances like the Olympics or where waterways
have been particularly developed for freight, is it a bit of an
illusion? Is it one of these things that people like to talk about
but in strict, physical terms it is not a real runner? We should
be concentrating on people enjoying themselves as opposed to the
mythical idea that we can move things around and make huge improvements.
Mr Schlegel: Yes.
Q106 Chairman: What about the movement
of waste? This is something that BW in particular have spent some
quite serious resources looking at.
Mr Schlegel: There are specific
opportunities at Sharpness, on the River Lee and on the Thames
where the waterway exists. The thing about freight movement that
people have to understand is that it is not sufficient for the
point of production and the point of consumption to be linked
by the means of transportation. For it to be efficient, there
has to be a limited amount of handling and if there is any double
handling coming into it, in relatively short distances—and
I have to say this is a small country in freight terms; we are
not transporting thousands of miles—if double handling comes
into it at any stage it becomes a problem and the economics kill
it. But if you have, for example, on waste, a collection centre,
a handling centre which is beside a waterway and a disposal point
which is beside a waterway, there is no double handling; you have
overcome those issues, but those opportunities are quite rare.
Q107 Chairman: What about bio-energy?
Mr Schlegel: Bio-energy is related
to waste all related to the production of bio-fuels. If that is
a potential, then again, it comes back to the point of production
and the point of consumption being linked by the transit medium.
Q108 Chairman: Is the point that
you have to plan these from the inception of the project rather
than think "And, by the way, wouldn't it be nice if we could
move this by water?" which may be coastal shipping.
Mr Schlegel: Absolutely. Coastal
shipping has more potential. You appreciate I sit as Chair of
the Maritime Panel of the Institution of Civil Engineers and coastal
shipping is very topical.
Q109 Chairman: Is it your experience
that it is happening now or is the coastal shipping/inland waterways
element an afterthought?
Mr Schlegel: I think in this country
there is not a culture at this period in time of thinking first
about the waterway as a means of transport. I think the first
thing that is looked at when major developments are being considered
is the availability of the site and the planning potential, i.e.
will the site get planning consent and then the transport-related
aspects will follow on and there will generally be a presumption
to road first, rail second and waterway third.
Q110 Chairman: But there is a number
that could be brought forward in terms of a mile of motorway,
a mile of railway, a mile of waterway, and you can do some comparisons,
some cost benefit analyses?
Mr Schlegel: A very simple analysis
that is generally quoted is that rail is three times more efficient
than road and water is three times more efficient than rail in
energy terms.
Q111 Chairman: Those are serious
numbers if somebody wants to grapple with it.
Mr Schlegel: Yes, but again, all
those numbers are overcome if there is double handling involved.
Q112 Mrs Moon: You said in terms
of expansion of leisure use that capacity was an issue.
Mr Schlegel: Sorry; it could be
an issue, yes.
Q113 Mrs Moon: But throughout the
evidence we have heard today the focus very much seems to have
been on the canals and their boating use, but equally, we have
heard from IWA and from evidence that we have received that a
lot of use of canals comes from other interest groups. You have
the fishermen, the walkers, the cyclists, you have the environmental
issues as well as the property owners and the farmers who are
alongside. If we are facing these cuts, and you say there is a
£100 million backlog, given how much of the income for British
Waterways comes from Defra, which has huge responsibilities in
terms of farming and environment, do you see British Waterways
being forced to look at cutting these other areas of leisure use
and other interest groups to focus on the boating needs and the
maintenance of the boating facilities on its network, or do you
see them failing to meet every person's need by doing a little
bit here and a little bit there? Where do you see the pressures
really coming from?
Mr Schlegel: I think the pressures
inevitably come, first of all, at a political level, so the better
organised political groups, for example, IWA, who will forgive
me, I hope, for saying this but by and large represent the boating
population, will tend to focus on boating-related problems. If
a lock is closed because of a maintenance issue then they are
likely to raise concerns on that. If a towpath is closed because
there has been a structural failure of an embankment or a cutting
which affects it, that is likely to be a very local issue and
require a diversion path to be arranged and so on, and it will
be somewhat lower on the political agenda. British Waterways,
being publicly funded, inevitably has to respond to political
pressures. If cuts were to continue for a period of time beyond
anything that we are seeing at the moment, i.e. where you have
real and continuous degradation of the asset, which we saw during
the Sixties and Seventies, certainly on the remainder waterways,
where they were tasked with doing as little as possible and purely
in the interests of safety, water levels were reduced in the canals,
structures were propped up on a temporary basis, the whole amenity
of the waterway became reduced and many of the waterways declined
to the stage where they were derelict or semi-derelict and they
have become of interest to no-one really and are little visited.
Q114 Chairman: Can I just raise one
final point? Water is one of the most valuable resources that
humankind has. There was talk a few years ago in this country
about the water grid, which seems to have hit the buffers big-time.
If it is such a valuable resource, why is it that we have, certainly
until comparatively recently, under-invested in it? We are now
potentially cutting out some of the revenue stream. Why is water
not up there as one of the key issues, not just in transport but
in the whole way in which we are evolving our planning and our
economic growth systems? Why is it that water is still a bit of
an afterthought when it comes to some of the big decisions that
we make in our everyday lives?
Mr Schlegel: I am sorry. I am
not particularly clear whether you mean in relation to British
Waterways or generally.
Q115 Chairman: I am going beyond
British Waterways. I am actually saying that, for example, we
do not have a Minister for Water. If you look at the number of
different tangential issues—regeneration, water supply,
some of the issues we have talked about about how you can move
around the country—why is it that water is something that
really does not figure as of key concern? It is always there as
a second or third-tier issue.
Mr Schlegel: If you go to other
countries, you will see there are ministers for irrigation, for
example, where water is valued and seen as a scarce resource.
I think the Environment Agency would feel that they have a particular
role to safeguard this country's water supply and its long-term
viability. It is a bit like Radio 2 saying Thames Water has had
the drought order withdrawn after the wettest winter in memory.
It is seen to be something that the British population do take
somewhat for granted and think that we should be able to have
enough water. Climate change is obviously going to change that.
The biggest issue with water in this country is its storage. There
has been a presumption for a number of years against the development
of more reservoirs and the like but that is now changing and we
are seeing a number of reservoir development proposals coming
forward. At a political level—I am not qualified to say
this—and I remember there being a Minister for Drought at
one point in time. I have no doubt that at some point in the future
it will be politically expedient to have a Minister for Water.
Mrs Moon: Or a Tsar!
Q116 Sir Peter Soulsby: Can I briefly
return to focus on leisure again and what you were saying about
congestion, honey pots and so on. I want to pick up something
from the early evidence from the RDAs on the prospects for making
better use of the network by opening new links. They referred
to the Lichfield and Hatherton link, or at least it was referred
to by them or by the IWA. I am aware also of proposals to try
and link Bedford to Milton Keynes. Are these links ones that actually
would address that issue and are they technically possible and,
in broad terms, worth doing?
Mr Schlegel: I think in regeneration
terms, generally speaking, the funding will be driven by regeneration
opportunities and certainly, if the experience of the last 15
years is anything to go by, the justification for the upgrading,
improvement or otherwise development of the existing network has
been on the basis of socio-economic gain. I think the spread of
the leisure opportunity therefore will follow that and I think
it is creating that leisure opportunity in those locations where
it is not currently available that will widen the waterway leisure
opportunity. I do not see that fulfilling a leisure desire is
necessarily what is driving it; I think it is a socio-economic
opportunity to bring waterways into good use as opposed to being
semi-derelict assets. That is what has driven restoration to date.
Q117 Sir Peter Soulsby: To reinforce
the point that was being made earlier, the regeneration that will
drive that is not central to what Defra is about.
Mr Schlegel: Yes, absolutely and
of course, the recreational value—and I would prefer the
word "recreation" rather than "leisure" when
it comes to British Waterways, because I think it is about informal
use rather than some of the more structured leisure uses.
Q118 Chairman: Mr Schlegel, you have
been very generous with your time. You heard what I said to earlier
contributors: what you have said cannot be unsaid but there may
be something that either yourself or the Institution wish to clarify
or enhance and we are only too willing to receive additional written
evidence. We thank you for appearing before us and hope you did
not find it too onerous.
Mr Schlegel: Thank you for inviting
me.
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