Alternative view of British Waterways

Britsh Waterways helps you through locks, wears a permanent smile and graduates its staff through charm school. Its a compelling illusion of gentility, servility and propriety.

In fact, British Waterways is a Ł100 million state run monopoly that is, by any commercial measure, bankrupt.

British Waterways receives a cash subsidy of over Ł1 million a week from the Exchequer to cover its losses. That's Income Tax and VAT collected from you and me! All this is on top of money we hand over to British Waterways for Boat licences, mooring fees and rent. We boaters subsidise British Waterways very heavily.

The top brass at Watford receive salaries of over Ł100,000 a year each, plus a yearly bonus, which allegedly, is a share-out of the unspent waterways budget!

"That's it! No more dredging. We want that money for our annual bonus!"

Seemingly, Head Office executives have an incentive to turn off waterway spending to maximise their personal financial well being! Meanwhile, as a way of life, they cry an endless plea of poverty! (To secure an even bigger subsidy from the Exchequer?) ...But as you might expect, from a smiley, feely, touchy, bankrupt organisation, it always has enough cash to buy endless convoys of new vehicles, new literature, new uniforms, new offices, new computers, new signs, and worst of all, fund expensive legal battles against boaters!

And what does British Waterways do for its fat weekly subsidy? Create new, much needed jobs for the young and unemployed? Offer cheap alternative housing on boats for those needing a roof over their head? Take heavy wagons off the road by encouraging freight onto the canals? No! It closes down the canal network in the winter, puts up all prices, increases regulation and now, in competition with the rest of unsubsidised the leisure industry, operates the biggest publically subsidised linear theme park in the nation. Meanwhile schools, hospitals and transport struggle to keep pace with the 21st century.

Today British Waterways presents itself as a warm, caring, balanced, regulating authority, doing a wonderful job for canals and boaters alike. BW supports this high opinion of itself by producing an endless stream of glossy, expensive, "Aren't-We-Wonderful" literature, videos and seminars, paid for by us their customers and their subsidy suppliers.

BW claim that with humble resources its achievements are legion.

The reality is somewhat different. British Waterways is profligate, spendthrift and greedy. It is also overblown, over bearing and over priced. BW (or more correctly British Waterways Board) has turned our quiet, peaceful canal network into an expensive, over regulated, over managed, linear water theme park. And they've only just begun! Our canals used to be easy, inexpensive, and casual. Today they are managed, packaged and highly commercialised.
I support this strong view by inviting boaters to acknowledge a few examples.

	IN RECENT YEARS BOATING COSTS HAVE GONE THROUGH THE ROOF. LICENCES, MOORINGS AND M.O.T.s (CERTIFICATES OF SAFETY) ALL BECAUSE OF BW CHARGING.
	NEW PETTY RULES AND REGULATIONS HAVE BEEN INTRODUCED SUCH THAT WHERE YOU MAY OR MAY NOT MOOR IS NOW SEVERELY RESTRICTED
	NEW SIGNS HAVE APPEARED THROUGHOUT THE SYSTEM ADVISING YOU OF NEW RESTRICTIONS AND NEW CHARGES THAT NEVER BEFORE WERE LEVIED.
	BW HAVE ALLEGEDLY SNAFFLED LAND THROUGHOUT THE COUNTRY BY PLACING A BLANKET CLAIM WITH THE LAND REGISTRY OFFICE OF THEIR DISPUTED OWNERSHIP OF A RANSOM STRIP OF LAND, OFF TOWPATH AND ALONG THE ENTIRE SYSTEM.
	BW IGNORE LAND-OWNER RIPARIAN STATUTORY RIGHTS TO MOOR BOATS ALONGSIDE ONES OWN LAND. MOORING DISPUTES ABOUND NATIONWIDE!
	BW THREATEN LAND OWNERS AND BOATERS ALIKE WITH COURT ACTION IF THEY DARE TO EVEN QUERY THE CORRECTNESS OF THESE THREATS
	BW SAY THEY WANT TO HELP SHIFT HEAVY LOADS OFF THE ROADS AND ONTO THE CANAL NETWORK BUT THEY KEEP THE SYSTEM CLOSED FOR 3-4 MONTHS OF EVERY YEAR?

AND THATS NOT THE HALF OF IT!

BRITISH WATERWAYS... The fastest way to cock up our canals.

BOATERS... Lets campaign to rid ourselves of the city slickers, the asset strippers, the marketing gurus and the so called professional managers who dont know one end of a boat from another. Lets campaign to replace them with a boater sympathetic management who instinctively have our best interests at heart and who will make our boating lives easier, less expensive and less rule bound. NABO, RBOA, IWA, and the rest, please take this as a plea for help and redirect your efforts to reverse this downward trend. Let us no longer fiddle whilst BW sets the pace and fields its own anti-boater agenda.

Featured below are opening suggestions for a new stickers campaign. First contributions to this page have been gratefully accepted. They are not entirely politically correct nor necessarily pin point accurate but the general sentiments expressed will ring true in many boaters ears. Submit your words for a sticker, by emailing Simon, and see it appear on this page

BW Head Office Staff Rule No10,345 Thou shalt not listen to boating customers unless there is absolutely NO alternative.

BW Head Office Staff Rule No 8,632 As a priority learn to make life Expensive, Difficult and Tiresome for boaters.

BW Head Office Staff Rule No 9367 Thou shalt cultivate an arrogant and dictatorial demeanour whilst harbouring a healthy disregard for permanent cruisers and liveaboards.

BW Head Office Staff Rule No 6512 You are not employed to please boaters. Doing so may result in immediate dismissal. Crassness is obligatory and expected.

BW Head Office Staff Rule No 6792 People who design stickers like this are dangerous and should be sidelined and ignored.
(See FINAL SOLUTION)

BW Head Office Staff Rule No 3249 Always, Always, Always plead poverty, it guarantees more money from the Treasury.

BW Head Office Staff Rule No 8886 Knowing one end of a boat from another is no substitute for a degree in Asset Stripping,
Creative Accountancy and Time wasting.

BW Head Office Staff Rule No 3249 Spending money on choosing colours for a new logo is a priority when you have a canal network to run.

BW Head Office Staff Rule No 4449 Always say what they want to hear and then get on with what Watford advised you to do
in the first place.

BW Head Office Staff Rule No 6006 Avoid putting commitments in writing, someone may try and keep you to them.

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