This is the morning after the meeting before, with the Waterways Minister.
As the two dozen or more representatives gathered in the Defra foyer, there was discussion about yesterday's morning Adjournment Debate about waterways won by Mr Fabricant, MP for Lichfield. It appeared Mr Gardiner was referred to as a 'nincompoop' but Jonathan Shaw put in a good appearance. This set the tone of the afternoon Waterway Stakeholder meeting.
He expected that BW's grant would not be far off 'flat cash', i.e. not increased in line with inflation. This is more promising than the expected 5% cut and a lot better than the doom mongers had predicted. The 'divvying' process was expected in Jan 2008 or maybe Feb.
Defra are getting a small rise over inflation in their CSR settlement but the excess would go to 'ringfenced' expenses like flood relief and animal/bird disease, leaving other delivery agencies getting small gains or losses.
A lot was made of the new interdepartmental initiative for spreading the load of waterway funding to other departments to whose objectives the waterways contributed. I think over half a dozen, maybe up to eight, were mentioned, including the Treasury and of course Culture/Media/Sport and Communities/Local Government. We wished them all power in getting senior officials from these departments. For this we can thank the EFRA committee report and the heightened awareness across the political spectrum caused by the campaigning last year.
Another matter brought up was whether the Minister could set about simplifying the statute law that is shackling the navigation authorities. This started with me mentioning the amount of work NABO and other user groups had put into the EA TWAO - and money, as David Pearce reminded them, that was apparently being wasted through Defra lawyers' intransigence. During my question he started muttering to Jayne Redrup so I expect this is something he didn't know about.
Suggestions were made that new primary legislation, a Waterways Bill, should be put forward to sort out all the anachronisms, allow NAs easier borrowing and possibly greater harmonisation and a more level playing field all round. There were NA reps there from BW, EA and the Broads. The latter having to get powers through a Private Member's Bill which is ludicrous.
Jonathan Shaw felt he learned a lot from meeting us all and would like to make such meetings a regular event.
Thanks to those few who have responded so far. One comment made about the survey itself is that there was no way to avoid making a judgement on the level of attainment so I have added a default option to say 'No Opinion'. Thanks Chris for that and I hope it will make it more acceptable.
www.nabo.org.uk/css-survey.html
I am going to the Yorkshire one on Thursday to see how they pan out. Any other feedback to me welcome and please try to go if it is still not too late to book in your area.
Happy Christmas
Stuart Sampson