Sell-off makes no sense

THE sell-off by British Waterways of its tools and equipment by auction makes no sense at all, and strikes me as highly suspicious, writes John Hall.

The amount of money resulting from the sale, will be pretty small, and will in no way reflect the true value  of the equipment to the canals.

Important to volunteer groups

At least some of this equipment would have been of important use to the 'volunteer' groups which British Waterways is 'encouraging' to emerge. A sample look at the equipment being sold reveals ridiculously low reserve asking prices—no attempt there then to guarantee their true value!

The declared intention to 'hire' the equipment  as and when required is absolutely ridiculous, (and are they going to do this for all the volunteer groups simultaneously?) To begin with, the actual cost of daily hire of a typical piece of equipment  will in all probability exceed the value obtained from the sale of that piece of equipment.

Potential cost

To add to this is the potential cost of delivering it by the hire company to the intended site, the loss/damage deposit which has to be paid at the time of hire, and the cost of collecting and returning it to the hire base, or does British Waterways expect the volunteer group to pay for this?

In addition, it is my experience in dealing with hire companies that the desired piece of equipment is very often not available when required assuming they have it in the first place, especially at weekends-which is when the volunteer groups will most likely intend carrying out the intended work. In many instances hired equipment is in a poor state, tools which should be sharp for example aren't, requiring the hirer to bring them up to a usable standard, not forgetting that safety equipment will also have to be provided.

Highly sceptical

However, as I said at the beginning of this piece, I am highly sceptical as to why British Waterways is selling this equipment at all and why now! I fail to see a tremendous amount of money being realised from this sale certainly not enough to make any significant dent in British Waterways' alleged shortfall, and paling in comparison to Mr. Hales annual salary and bonus.

With virtually no equipment being available what are British Waterways own workmen going to do, or is there going to be yet another round of redundancies amongst the only employees who deserve to remain on the payroll?

John Hall