Today the Inland Waterways Association put out a 'briefing note' which is strongly against the Conservative policy on selling off BW waterways property.
The party has so far refused to meet IWA chairman John Fletcher to discuss the plans. But perhaps it's not so surprising that the brand new Conservative manifesto now makes no mention of either British Waterways or the canals. Where do they stand on this issue? Perhaps they are bashfully, quietly, slinking away from it.
Time for one of the Conservative waterways spokesmen to step forward and tell us where they stand, perhaps? The closest public one I've found is (once again) Michael Fabricant, but even his statement of March 7th is hardly a stirring rebuttal of what the IWA is saying. Peter Luff has taken his website offline during the election, but he had a more detailed rebuttal which I found still cached on Google, and which I've saved and stolen and uploaded here. Strange that I had to resort to such subterfuge to find their point of view! Perhaps they really are trying to slink away in embarassment from their proposals?
Links:
Overview of story IWA Memorandum Conservative 2005 Election Manifesto
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