--- In [email protected], "Mike Stevens" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> On Sunday, October 08, 2006 11:55 PM [GMT+1=CET],
> Will Chapman <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
>
> >> The most perverse situation to my mind is all the cash being put
> >> forward to restore and re-open canals and yet our masters
"Our masters"? You are Victor Swift and I claim my five pounds!
can't
> >> manage the ones we've got already. Surely restoration needs to be
> >> sidelined while money is used for preservation.
> >>
> > That's not a bad point but surely it's a question of balance.
> > if BW don't restore as well as maintain won't there will always be
> > twice as many people complaining?
> >
> I'm very sceptical about the idea that BW budget cuts will bring
> restoration to a halt. I believe the amount of their own money (as opposed
> to money they have leveraged out of third parties) that BW has put into
> restoration has not been that significant, not least because it is actually
> illegal (I believe) for them to spend any of their grant-in-aid or licence
> revenue on restoring remiander waterways to navigable condition.
>
I think you are right about grant-in-aid. But they can put commercial income
(eg from property) into canal restoration, and they can (and do) provide
guarantees to underwrite possible cost over-runs for major restoration contract
work - for example to allow for the possibility that bad weather, unexpectedly
bad ground conditions etc all add up and send the scheme way over budget. This
may not cost them anything in the end (the costings already include some
contingency allowance, and the worst-case scenario is unliukely to arise) but
the projects won't be allowed to proceed without it being in place. It was
what sent the potential Cotswold Canals Phase 1 costs spiralling, and nearly
led to the major funding being lost. I was informed a few weeks ago by BW that
"Not all the contracts are signed" for the four major restoration / new
construction projects with BW involvement that are just starting. And BW has
said that in order to salvage as much as possible of the planned winter works
programme that has been threatened by the cuts, it is hoping that
better-than-average results from its business interests will allow money to be
transferred into the engineering maintenance budget.
It is right for BW (and us) to be concerned about getting the priorities right
between restoration and maintenance, but it would be sad if (say) a package of
over UKP 20m of funding for the Cotswold Canals, almost all from non-BW
sources, is lost because the alternative is to delay (say) UKP 1m worth of
urgent maintenance on the navigable network.
Martin L
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