The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) has formally advised British Waterways of its views on the authority’s vision on moving to the third sector, following lengthy discussions and a subsequent meeting between British Waterways and IWA’s board of trustees.

IWA believes that the British Waterways 20/20”Vision” has the potential to represent a significant opportunity for the waterways and could be further developed so that it could represent a building block consistent with IWA’s longstanding vision and goal for a national waterways conservancy, where all of the waterways are administered by one single authority with sufficient autonomy, and the right structure of governance to truly have the interests of the waterways at its heart, and which could offer economies of scale.

IWA also sees the value from a ‘conservancy’ type organisation in that it could conceivably protect the assets of BW from a property assets ‘raid’ by the Treasury, should the new organisation be given the property in some form of trust or as an endowment free from government control .

Speaking on behalf of IWA, Clive Henderson, national chairman said,

“ We are supporting BW in this vision. Whilst IWA remains cautious, and wishes to see how the figures from economic modelling stack up, we can see the advantages that this vision could present to the waterways as a whole , and IWA welcomes the approach adopted by BW both for its bold thinking and in trying to find a long term solution for the governance of the waterways. We also wish to acknowledge their openness in encouraging a wide debate with a broad spectrum of stakeholders, and look forward to this continuing”.

He went on to add,

“If the vision of a national conservancy causes concern for some stakeholder groups; then we all need to work together to ensure that these concerns are fully ventilated and addressed so that we can ensure that the right outcome for the waterways is achieved”.

IWA has stated that it looks forward to further involvement in the development of BW’s plans and the possible involvement of government in providing support in the form of expertise in assessing the economic benefits of any proposed models over the existing state owned authority.