The Evans achievements

THE Canal & River Trust press release announcing the resignation of Robin Evans quotes him as saying 'I am very proud of what we have achieved over the past ten years', writes Allan Richards.

However, it is little use stating this without spelling out what British Waterways was trying to achieve under his stewardship, and measuring his performance against that.

Maintenance backlog

Robin Evans joined British Waterways as Commercial Director in 1999 and became its Chief Executive in December 2002.

Examination of British Waterways' 2002/3 Annual Report shows that its basic plan was quite simple. It was to eradicate a significant historic backlog of maintenance work (with safety work taking precedence) over a ten year period.

The report demonstrates that government were providing extra grant to enable this to be achieved, stating:

'Many years of under investment in the waterways resulted in a backlog of maintenance works, which in 1997 was valued at £260 million. In recent years government has helped to tackle this serious underfunding by increasing our annual grant by £8 million from 1999-2000 onwards, and by a further £9 million from 2002-03 onwards. The cost to eliminate the remaining backlog of maintenance at March 2003 was valued at £187 million'.

December 2012

The report also confirms a new target date for eliminating this backlog as December 2012 (the old targets are shown by doted lines). The new chief executive was so confident of achieving this that he stated: 'We want to make sure that we are never again in a position where we have a huge backlog of maintenance work.'

Just a few years later he was eating his words. In a briefing document, British Waterways' Commercial Director, James Froomberg, revealed that the backlog of maintenance was now higher than when he took office. Instead of reducing to £120m by 2007 as planned, it had actually risen to £200m.

The 2012 figure

So what is the maintenance backlog today? Well it seems that Defra don't know and CaRT won't say! A conspiracy of silence exists.

Robin Evans admitted to trustees that he has under-spent on the waterways every year since 2004. That means it must be significantly larger than the £200m stated by James Froomberg in 2007. The best estimate that can be given based on the known under-spend is that it is now about a third of a billion pounds and growing significantly each year.

Certainly this figure has been quoted in narrowboatworld on several occasions and has never been disputed by British Waterways or CaRT.

Self sufficiency

However, Robin Evans 'achievement' of running down our waterways over the ten years of his tenure rather than improving them is not his only one.

We also have his vision 'that by 2012 we will have created an expanded, vibrant, largely self-sufficient waterway network used by twice as many people as in 2002. It will be regarded as one of the nation's most important and valued national assets. Visitors will be delighted by the experience and as a consequence many will become active participants'.

By self sufficiency he meant his reliance on government grant. Now lets think about that for a moment. When he took office government was happily giving extra grant so that British Waterways could reduce its maintenance backlog. Here is Robin Evans saying quite publicly that he does not need this extra money because he cannot only eliminate the backlog but can also reduce dependence on grant.

What has only become apparent in the last few months is that just over ten years ago government arranged a loan for British Waterways to help develop its commercial interests. It is almost certain that some sort of understanding existed that in return for the loan British Waterways' grant support would be reduced due to increased financial returns from joint ventures.

A good deal for Government perhaps but a death blow for the waterways!