Public to decide on British Waterways new boundaries

Published: Wednesday, 20 May 2009
IT WAS announced on Wednesday that there is to be a public consultation on the proposed British Waterways boundary changes and their names.
This follows the announcement at the end of April of a proposed internal restructure of its operations in England and Wales, British Waterways is consulting on the boundaries and names of its proposed waterway units. Submissions to the consultation are invited up until 6th July 2009.

There are not going to be any less units, but British Waterways relates:

'Taking effect from October 2009, they will deliver improved levels of efficiency and customer service. In the revised structure, certain functions which fall outside of day-to-day maintenance, such as managing moorings, developing partnerships and carrying out major engineering projects, will be undertaken by specialist centralised teams'.

Simon Salem, Marketing & Customer Service Director, comments:

“Each waterway unit is intended to be similar in length and with a similar number of physical structures. Beyond that, optimising water control and supply has been a major factor influencing proposed boundaries and we’ve also tried to reflect local authority and regional development agency administrative areas.

“The aim of the restructure is to achieve greater operating efficiency and, although boundaries between one waterway unit and another should be seamless, boat owners and boating trade customers in particular may wish to have a say in the final boundary decisions. This includes whether the locations of the boundaries are appropriate, plus any suggestions for the naming of particular waterway groupings.”

The suggested boundaries of each of the 11 units and the consultation paper are available to view on the BW website. Paper copies or a large print version of this consultation are also available on request from the BW customer service team on 0845 671 5530.