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By Ben Metz, August 20, 2010 10:56 am Today I start a new project. I’m part of a small team that’s recently obtained funding to explore how our waterways might realise maximum public benefit through its widely anticipated move from government quango to civil society body. It’s an exciting time for Arm’s Length Bodies . . . → Read More: Exploring potential futures within civil society for The UK’s inland waterways 22nd Jul 2010 Environment secretary, Caroline Spelman, has announced reforms to more than 30 of Defra’s arm’s length bodies. As a result, the Inland Waterways Advisory Council IWAC is to be abolished. IWAC was created in 2007 by the Natural Environment and Rural Communities Act 2006 as a successor to the Inland Waterways Amenity . . . → Read More: Inland Waterways Advisory Council abolished There are 93,000 square miles in the UK. We tend to only hear about two of them, the square miles of the City and Westminster, and have felt badly let down by both of them in recent years. “Your Square Mile” is about enabling citizens to make changes in as many of the other . . . → Read More: Your Square Mile – The Big Society Extract from Parliamentary Debate on Inland Waterways The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Richard Benyon): I congratulate the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Tristram Hunt) on securing this debate. After such a tense afternoon in the Chamber, it is nice to be able to find a subject on which . . . → Read More: Parliament Debate on Future of Waterways by Winsfordian on July 03, 2010 at 08:30AM Rich in heritage, abundant in wildlife and alive with culture, inland waterways are as popular today as they’ve ever been. Half the population lives within five miles of one of our canals and rivers and an incredible 13 million people use them every year as part . . . → Read More: Help British Waterways become a 3rd sector organisation In 1847, the Scottish novelist Hugh Miller described the River Irwell as “a flood of liquid manure, in which all life dies, whether animal or vegetable, and which resembles nothing in nature, except perhaps the stream thrown out in eruption by some mud-volcano”. Friedrich Engels was equally disparaging about the state of Manchester’s Irk: “a narrow, coal-black, foul-smelling stream … out of whose depth bubbles of miasmatic gases constantly rise and give forth a stench that is unbearable.” In its own dark manner, the industrial revolution brought Britain’s waterways to life. Our rivers and canals became the arteries of relentless economic growth and social change – but also the prime deposits of urban excrescence. Today, all cleaned up, they have the opportunity to be at the forefront of another programme of social change. For if this government really wants to live up to its rhetoric of the “Big Society”, it might quietly begin here. . . . → Read More: FT – Take the towpath that leads to the Big Society Oral Answers to Questions — Environment, Food and Rural Affairs House of Commons debates, 24 June 2010, 10:30 am Tristram Hunt (Stoke-on-Trent Central, Labour) What plans she (Caroline Spellman, Secretary of State) has for the future of British Waterways. Richard Benyon (Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Natural Environment and Fisheries), Environment, Food and Rural . . . → Read More: British Waterways House of Commons debate Environment Food and Rural Affairs Written answers and statements, 23 June 2010 Joan Walley (Stoke-on-Trent North, Labour) To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs what expenditure British Waterways has incurred on maintaining and developing waterway network infrastructure in each of the last 10 years; what proportion of such expenditure . . . → Read More: Inland Waterways: Repairs and Maintenance During the EFRA Question Time that took place in Parliament on 24 June 2010 First a statement by Richard Benyon, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs; “I am pleased to be appointed as Waterways Minister as I am familiar with the public benefits the waterways provide and I am . . . → Read More: Parliament gives some clues to future of waterways…
Monday, 21 June 2010 The newly-appointed government minister with responsibility for the waterways is Richard Benyon MP. His message to the waterway community upon appointment gives a rather mixed message. He said that the new Government would continue to look at the possibility of creating a “third sector” model for British . . . → Read More: New Minister hedges on BW changes |
During the WWII Britain's gold reserves were secretly transported by canal barge to Liverpool, before being shipped to Canada #canalfactoid
14 hours ago Make David Cameron live up to his promise of leading 'the greenest government ever' http://tinyurl.com/37nwdu2 #RSPB #LTTF
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