Contingency
Peter Ponting is not right to suggest the Trust is 'desperately' seeking funds for the breach. Each year starts with a £2m contingency in the budget. In the early autumn there's a review to see if it will be needed or has been allocated already. If not, we plan how to use it: last year we were able to use it largely for a blitz on tree cutting. This year we had already allocated £1m for extra bank protection on the Mon & Brec.
We were about to allocate the other £1m for additional winter works; then the Trent & Mersey breached and the Croxton embankment was damaged. So that's the contingency used up plus a bit more. The repairs will be done quickly and we have to work out whether we defer some of the other jobs we had planned for the winter, or continue with those jobs and overspend a bit this year with less money available next year. That's part of business planning.
Top pay
There's been a lot said—and in the end it's a matter of personal opinion. But please credit the Trustees with some sense! We assessed what was needed if we had to recruit new staff and then adjusted—downwards by 12% for Robin Evans—pay levels. Comparisons with Macmillan or Barnados are not valid, as the charities are so different. Interesting that NABO News judges the National Trust to be a valid comparison; it says the new pay levels are broadly in line with the National Trust.
Trust Council and new Navigation Advisory Group
Well, we Trustees don't see the independence of Council members affected by what other organisations they belong to; indeed, those who are also IWA members tend to be the more vocal at Council meetings! The new Trust hasn't got Memorandums of Understanding with only the IWA. One with the Kennet & Avon Canal Trust is imminent and there are also ones in the pipeline with other canal societies.
NABO's chairman is on the new Navigation Advisory Group but he's still independent. Better to be on the inside being listened to—or shouting on the outside? And readers should be pleased to know that the Navigation Group at its first meeting began looking at a new 10 year dredging strategy—something which is possible now we are out of a 'Government cuts' regime. I guess your readers will be interested to hear about the £250k dredging this month around Hanwell; between Bunbury and Wharton Locks; and around Fradley. In November £300k of spot dredging starts on the Tame Valley. In 2013 £250k is scheduled to spot dredge the BCN Main Line and £300k on the Daw End and Rushall.
2014 should see a further £250k on the Main Line. The Chester/Ellesmere Port section is scheduled for 2014. I could go on! Some of this work reflects comments from boaters as well as what the engineers reckon—so do keep letting the waterway managers know of problem areas as it is all noted down and influences decisions.
Poetry
I'm pleased that Jo Bell, the new Canal Poet Laureate, has been living on her boat for the last 12 years. I gather this year she's moved between Manchester and the Kennet & Avon. I heard she read Tom Rolt's Narrow Boat as a 'call to arms'. This summer saw the Rochdale Canal Festival being promoted by 91 poems, one for each of the canal's locks—adding up to a 33 miles poetry trail through this waterway's most spectacular, and varied, scenery. Those of us getting on a bit remember that many of the IWA's founders came from an arts background and used the arts to attract the public to the waterways. And there's the John Betjeman poem at Stratford about the Upper Avon Re-opening.
Ask me
Times move on and the days when navigation authorities and users had great differences on the fundamental future of the waterways are gone—with the users being successful! (I remember the old days—I was General Secretary of the Inland Waterways Association in the 1970s—who'd have then expected I'd end up as a Trustee?). Now discussion is more about how to implement strategy. I'm not surprised if there are differences of view about the order of priorities when the Trust does not have unlimited resources—that shows the passion people have for the waterways.
But your readers can see the new Trust is receptive to ideas from others—e.g. setting up the Navigation Advisory Group and other advisory groups as well as our regional waterways partnerships. Little of that existed in the British Waterways days. Although change will be evolutionary rather than revolutionary, your readers can see some changes already.
Now I must go. Helen is at Preston Brook, the wrong side of the breach so I'm going around via Marple - some 10 hour days for me, I fear.