Scraping the bottom
THE Canal & River Trust (CaRT) dredging strategy proclaims that its waterways will benefit from an investment of £80 millions over the next ten years, writes Allan Richards.
It also states 'We anticipate that our annual spend on dredging will increase from around £5 million in 2012/13 to about £10 million by 2021/22'. This claim was repeated almost word for word in September in a 'Boater's Update'.
Deferred projects
So how is it that this year (2013/14) the Trust will be spending less than £5m on dredging? Surely, if the idea is to increase spend, then CaRT should be doing just that rather than reducing it to just £3,675,000 as it has done.
Yes, that's right! CaRT is actually reducing its spend on dredging this year.
.... and some of the excuses for deferred projects this year beggar belief. CaRT maintains that that some of the planned dredging on the Mon & Brec has been delayed because they need to build 'specific narrow gauge dredging plant'. Perhaps this waterway is already so shallow that that existing plant will not float and something special has to be made that crawls along the bed of the canal.
Only 39%
Here is another claim made in September's 'Boater's Update'. 'Increasingly we're reusing the sediment to repair our canal banks and in 2011-12 we recycled almost all of the sediment by using as backfill to build up and protect the canal bank'.
Notice anything strange about this particular claim? CaRT are using figures for 2011/12 not 2012/13 which they have available. Indeed, the 2012/13 Annual Report and Impact Statement both tell us, in respect of dredging, that CaRT '.... managed to recycle or reuse 39% of this waste that would have previously gone to landfill'.
By no stretch of the imagination can 39% be regarded as 'almost all'.
So why is it that the Trust feels the need to deliberately mislead the public on its green credentials?
'Talking up' the Trust
In the article £1m Lapworth project decimated we quoted one of Trustee John Dodwell's many speeches 'talking up' CaRT and its supposed long term financial security:
'We can at last plan long term, being pretty sure about our income over the next few years. Not so long ago, 55% came from unreliable government grants. The 15 years initial funding contract with government is the first time the waterways have ever had long term financial security. An example is that in the West Midlands there are plans to spend £1m on the Lapworth Flight in 2013-4 with a mass of works over the 20 locks'.
As is now known, the £1m became a paltry £9,000.
What was not quoted (because it was not relevant to the article) was the Trustee's very next sentence 'Another example is that the Trust is looking at a 10 year dredging programme in the knowledge that the funding will be there'.
However, as funding for dredging is decreasing rather than increasing, it is rather obvious that funding is not there!
Victor
Victor, in Don't shoot the messenger, referring to Trustee John Dodwell's speeches 'talking up' CaRT, suggests his statements on dredging will come back to haunt him.
Perhaps, they already have!