24/11/2018
EDITORIAL –
BY PETER UNDERWOOD
It has been almost eight years since David Cameron decided to get
our national waterways off the governmentfs book by handing it over to a pseudo
charity in what was meant to be the start of a mass handover of services the
Tory government couldnft sell off to private profiteers.
Despite a lot of noisy political PR about Third
Sector involvement, our waterways were the only major victim of this abrogation
of responsibility. Along with a number of other boaters – all people with their
lives invested in the waterways – I argued from the start that this was a
fundamental mistake, that it removed accountability to the electorate, and that
the UK Waterways were a vital cultural and historical asset that deserved to be
looked after by the public purse.
The group we formed – Boatersf Manifesto – was given
the predictable spin doctor schmooze by British Waterways and the putative
Trustees of the new charitable company. We were invited to Milton Keynes,
patronised for a couple of hours and ignored. My recording of that meeting is
still online somewhere.
As a journalist for the past 50 years, I decided
that, if no-one else was able to hold Canal & River Trust to account, I
could use my set of skills to attempt to tell the real stories behind the
unrelentingly positive spin being churned out by itfs dozen or so public
relations officers.
I wanted boaters to know the real numbers, the
stories of harassment and incompetence, behind the managerial gobbledegook and
corporate bullshit. I have been joined by a number of other boater /
journalists contributing to the picture, over the past six years, most notably
and reliably Allan Richards who has incredible patience and has extracted one
uncomfortable truth after another from C&RT accounts and FoI requests.
We have had results – you always know you are getting
somewhere when you are threatened with legal action and senior executives start
telling lies about you – and thousands of boaters read and share every story
either from the website, Facebook or Twitter. In fact we have more readers than
any of the glossy waterways magazines.
And yet, and yetc.
Despite the flim flam figures in C&RTfs annual
report the system is going downhill, less is being spent on the essentials of
navigation and the number of unplanned stoppages is soaring – to the point that
the Trust has had to go to amazing lengths to fiddle the figures, as The
Floater has explained.
I suppose my hope was that boaters would join
together to bring pressure to bear on C&RT, especially after it completely
changed its priorities away from navigation into the ludicrous concept of
ewellbeingf in the desperate hope that it would persuade a government that has
already washed its hands of the waterways, to provide cash for walkers,
cyclists, fishermen and all the others it aims to drag onto the towpaths.
Ludicrous for two reasons. One is that a government
that canft be persuaded to spend on our health services or look after sick and
disabled people is unlikely to give a toss about generalised wellbeing.
The other is that the essence of the waterways is
boats, without boats all those people might as well go and do their thing
alongside a muddy pond in their local park. Yet C&RT doesnft want to give
priority to boats and navigation, we have steadily fallen down its priorities.
However, apathy rules, as ever. It is easy to
understand why. Those young people and families for whom a boat is home are too
busy working out the latest gguidanceh as C&RT continues to change the
rules, whilst trying to earn a living. Meanwhile the holiday boat owners are
only concerned if it affects their few weeks out on the system – and even then
only whist they are boating.
So my dilemma was whether I had the energy and
commitment to carry on researching and writing what were, in essence, the same
stories over and over again. The names might change but the facts rarely did.
The answer is that I have decided I canft be arsed to
carry on. Boaters have had enough information by now to be in little doubt that
C&RT has been transformed into a hollow husk, populated by over-paid
executives who want nothing to do with real boaters and waterways. Almost every
navigation function is contracted out – guaranteeing the least work for the
most money – or handed over to well meaning but limited volunteers.
The trajectory is downhill. I am a boater, and a
liveaboard and will remain one, but I am now going to get what I can out of the
system before it slowly closes down or C&RT is forced to hand it back to
government.
So there will be no more news stories from The
Floater website, which I am mothballing. The Facebook page and group will
remain open and I will share relevant waterway news from other sources as and
when I find them. Others are welcome to do the same.
By the end of the year the email editor@theFloater.org will no longer
function.