Waterway Watch

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: The towpath that leads to the Big Society

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 Waterways, . . . → Read More: New Minister hedges on BW changes