On 24/10/06, Adrian Stott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> "
> Boatyards, pubs, and tourism sites are businesses. Why should they be
> run otherwise?
Because the canals are primarily a national heritage, not a business
opportunity. And that is the problem with BW at the moment: they are
treating the waterways solely as a business, and sadly, year on year, we see
how this is destroying what we we value most about the cut. When Holt Abbot
and the other pioneers started their first hire firms, they did it not just
to earn money, but to earn a living for themselves in a way that would
preserve a way of life and evangelize an environment they valued. When Tony
Matts first came across Foxton it was a derelict site; his concern for the
fabric of what he found ensured that it would survive when other similar
sites across the country fell into ruin. Commitment like that deserves
respect.
Do you have no feeling for the history of cut and the thousands of people
like Tony that have ensured its survival? Or is everything for you a souless
matter of counting beans, reducible to a business plan and a bottom line?
Are people to be disposed of after they fulfilled their purpose?
I am only hoping that your view of the development of the waterways isn't in
any sense an official view of SOW. My God, don't I sometimes miss that
shambling old rock off Coronation, a waterways man with real integrity and
understanding...
Steve
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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