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A BRITISH Waterways spokesman has confirmed that the money from the sale of Wood Wharf will not go towards maintenance of the waterways as we were originally led to believe, but will be reinvested.
It was in answer to Allan Richards' posting on Waterscape Facebook site to his question 'Will British Waterways confirm that the £50m will be used to increase maintenance spend next year to halt the slide of our waterways into dereliction?' that British Waterways Odette Williamson replied:
"The £50million will be reinvested to produce further income generating assets (what you're proposing is very short term and essentially amounts to selling off the family silver)."
To which Allan responded:
"In other words no, British Waterways will not spend the £50m directly on maintaining the waterways they will buy more marinas, pubs or whatever telling us that they will generate income in the future.
British Waterways had over £50m tied up in Wood Wharf for years. It never made a penny.
Not done very well
Regular contributor Martin Cox writes:
I have read Allan Richards' article on Wood Wharf, and I agree that British Waterways do not appear to have done very well on this investment.
If I read British Waterways reply to Allan's Freedom of Information request correctly it appears to have invested a final total of £51.4m and sold it for £52.4m with no income during that period (10 years).
With hindsight, not a very good investment, but possibly no better than quite a few other commercial property investors over that period.
Such are the hazards of investment outside your core business, a hard lesson learnt by quite a few commercial concerns! However, Allan might want to find out about the estimated income rising up to £6m pa which British Waterways expect to receive from its retained freehold of the site...
Inflation
Another regular contributor James Henry brings up the matter of inflation:
"Calculating inflation over the 10 years period, the amount received for the sale of Wood Wharf is a great deal less than was first 'invested'. The £52.4m received for the sale is nothing like the true worth of £51.4 paid 10 years ago, but represents a colossal loss. So should these people be running the new charity? I think not."
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