Worst year ever—confirmed

FIGURES recently provided by Canal & River Trust (CaRT) have confirmed that, in terms of maintenance spend, this year will be the worst to date for the waterways of England and Wales.

CaRT plans to spend just £78.7 millions, some £1.3m less than last year and a massive £51.3m less than the amount needed to stop year on year deterioration, writes Allan Richards.

Our poor deteriorating waterways

In (Our poor deteriorating waterways) it was stated that 2012/13 was the worst year ever for maintenance spend, but this year (2013/14) would be worse. This is now confirmed.

Although spending more than the article's estimate of £75m, CaRT is only managing to do this by incurring a deficit of £5m which it is understood will be funded by a loan.

Pay rise

....and the directors reward for planning to spend less on the waterways this year? They have been awarded a modest pay rise!

[Despite having a planned income of £171.3m this year, CaRT will spent less than half this on maintaining its waterways.]