Memorandum submitted by Sea and Water
(BW 13)
INTRODUCTION
1. Sea and Water was set up in 2003 to provide
a representative voice for the inland waterways, short sea and
coastal shipping industry, and to promote water freight as a viable
alternative to the movement of freight on the UK's roads. Sea
and Water provides information to its supporters, communicates
the case for modal shift to other stakeholders, highlighting its
benefits to the environment, economy and society, and addresses
the barriers that prevent the greater take up of water.
2. Sea and Water is funded by a grant from
the Department for Transport and annual subscriptions and sponsorship
from a body of 130 supporters comprising the water-freight industry
in the UK. Many of our supporters are users of inland waterways
and their views are incorporated into this submission of evidence.
3. British Waterways provides a major part
of the water freight infrastructure. It is also an important supporter
of Sea and Water. The policies it adopts, and the resources it
uses, have the potential to substantially affect our sector.
4. We are therefore delighted to submit
evidence to the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.
We would be very happy to amplify any of the points we make here
either in writing or in oral evidence to the Committee.
POLICIES ADOPTED
BY BRITISH
WATERWAYS: PRIORITISING
WATER FREIGHT
5. British Waterways is responsible for
managing and maintaining more than 2,000 miles of canals and rivers
in England, Scotland and Wales. It is engaged in three principal
areas of work:
— Leisure activities: encouraging visitors
to waterways, and boating.
— Commercial activities, including
property development—British Waterways has a property portfolio
of £500 million plus.
— Promoting freight: by marketing waterborne
freight.
6. These activities inevitably conflict
from time to time. Leisure users and heavy freight traffic do
not always readily mix. Waterside-property development can limit
access for freight users to wharfs and docks. Where development
takes place it is a common and understandable reality that residents
are less than keen on the operation of docks and wharves for freight
activities nearby.
7. British Waterways has finite resources.
Therefore it has to prioritise how it spends those resources.
Our concern is that although British Waterway has a target of
doubling freight transport on its network by 2010, where there
is competition for resources it is very often leisure and property
that is prioritised, rather than freight. This is reflected in
the six success measures of the organisation set out in its Annual
Report:1[1]
these refer explicitly to visitors and to regeneration, and not
at all to freight. It is also reflected in the fact that British
Waterways has no Director specifically sponsoring its freight
interests, and that it has had only two full-time employees dedicated
to freight (who are now leaving—see below).
8. Our concerns have been brought into focus
by the budgetary constraints faced by British Waterways recently,
and by its decision in the past few months to review its freight
policies.2[2]
It has noted that grants available to encourage water freight
"do not take account of the costs that such traffic imposes
on British Waterways", and questions whether the commitment
it has made to double freight traffic is realistic. The study
commissioned by British Waterways is expected in the New Year,
and that will "give the opportunity for a full and realistic
public debate on the future of waterway freight and British Waterway's
role".3[3]
9. We too look forward to that debate, though
we are concerned that some participants including British Waterways
believe its outcome is predetermined. After all, focusing on property
and on leisure rather than freight is a rational choice for British
Waterways, as is shown by the income flows each activity generates.
But any diminishing of the importance of freight, particularly
as a result of an overall reduction in the money available to
British Waterways, is unfortunate and damaging given the Government's
overarching commitment to address the challenges of climate change—and
the particular enthusiasm to reduce the amount of carbon that
is emitted from transport.
10. Water freight has a very significant
role to play in meeting that need, since coastal and inland shipping
emits 80% less carbon dioxide per tonne kilometre than road haulage.
It also helps to relieve congestion where modal shift occurs.
Sea and Water believes that British Waterways should find a way
to balance its priorities, and should be given the budget by Government
to help it to do so. The organisation needs to reaffirm its commitment
to freight. We look particularly for an annual performance measure
for the organisation relating to the carriage of freight on its
waterways.
RESOURCES AVAILABLE
TO BRITISH
WATERWAYS
11. British Waterways is sponsored and part-funded
by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
The difficulties faced by Defra that have led to budget cuts at
British Waterways are well-known, and we do not seek to rehearse
them here. However, Sea and Water does not regard it as reasonable
to cut back other, wholly-unrelated, services at British Waterways
primarily because of problems in another organisation altogether.
12. The impact of the cut in funding to
British Waterways of £3.9 million has been to further undermine
its support for water freight. Our concern is not only that necessary
work such as dredging will be delayed. It is also that the compulsory
redundancies announced in October mean that the very limited freight
"unit" based centrally within British Waterways will
be disbanded, and responsibility for freight passed to regional
offices. Though there are "champions" of freight in
the regions, we are concerned that these staff must juggle other
responsibilities and demands. They also necessarily lack the expertise
of the two centrally-based staff who will be leaving. Sea and
Water believes that this will further "de-prioritise"
freight within the organisation, and believes that it is a decision
that should be urgently revisited.
13. In general, we believe that Defra risks
undermining its own key priority, addressing climate change, by
cutting funding to British Waterways. Water freight can prompt
modal shift, which in turn significantly cuts carbon emissions.
Any cutback to the support which allows freight to use the canals
and rivers managed by British Waterways, will constrain that modal
shift—and may indeed encourage existing water freight
users to shift back to the roads. This would be a perverse outcome,
and we urge Defra to reconsider the way it has applied cuts to
British Waterways.
14. Water freight is an existing and potential
income stream for British Waterways. Its current policies do not
reflect the point that new freight transport business could be
won and existing business maintained and developed. A case in
point is the use of the Severn River for the transport of freight
for the first time in 10 years in 2005; a service that is not
fully up and running yet and provides a sustainable waterway for
CEMEX and a potential revenue generator for British Waterways.
GOVERNANCE OF
BRITISH WATERWAYS:
THE NEED
FOR A
JOINED UP
APPROACH
15. In our view, the approach adopted by
British Waterways is in a large part the result of the way it
is governed. Its sponsoring department is Defra, rather than the
Department for Transport (DfT), which perhaps takes a more active
interest in freight transport issues. The Department for Communities
and Local Government (DCLG) also has an interest in British Waterways,
given its role in regeneration, development and planning. And
in the regions, RDAs (and in London the GLA and LDA) all have
an interest.
16. Sea and Water is concerned that although
all these various institutions undoubtedly communicate with one
another, there is still much more that might be done to properly
"join up" decision-making. This concern extends more
widely than just British Waterways, to policy-making about water
freight as a whole.
17. Sea and Water believes that there is
a case for Defra, DfT and DCLG in particular to set up a shared
"water transport unit" to cover inland waterways and
coastal shipping. There is a case for this shared unit to take
responsibility for British Waterways: we believe that if it did
so British Waterways would be better placed to achieve a balance
between all of its priorities, including freight.
SUMMARY OF
OUR EVIDENCE
18. Sea and Water believes that British
Waterways suffers from having conflicting priorities, and that
where conflicts arise it is water freight that loses out. Recent
cuts to the British Waterways budget have only exacerbated the
problem. The recent decision to review its freight policy, and
remove its core freight-marketing staff, demonstrates the point.
19. Given the potential of water freight
to reduce carbon emissions from transport, any decision by British
Waterways to step back from its role in delivering facilities
for freight will in the end undermine and damage Government's
efforts to address the challenge of climate change. This is particularly
regrettable if such a decision is forced on British Waterways
by increasing constraints on its funding from Government.
20. We believe that there are improvements
that can and should be made to the priorities of British Waterways,
to the resourcing of the organisation, and to its governance,
that would enable it to give a higher priority to water freight.
That would then encourage the organisation to facilitate modal
shift from road to water, reducing carbon emissions and helping
to address the key economic and environmental challenges of climate
change and congestion.
Sea and Water
January 2007
1 See Annual Report and Accounts 2005-06, p 3. Back
2
See: http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/images/Board-Briefing-Paper-September-2006.pdf Back
3
See: http://www.britishwaterways.co.uk/images/Board-Minutes-September-2006.pdf Back
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