Oh god. More government budget cuts.
And frankly, I suspect the canals - and thus British Waterways - are this time, even more down the list of priorities. We may yet look back at the Save Our Waterways campaign as having used up all its ammunition too early.
BBC:
The Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) is facing budget cuts of between £130m and £270m.
The prospective cutbacks come as the department faces bills for a series of countryside disasters such as bird flu, foot-and-mouth and bluetongue.
It is understood to be considering cuts across the board, for agencies such as the Environment Agency and British Waterways and various farming projects.
Pretty much ditto.
Cash set aside for certain things like 'building and flood defences' will escape this.
I fear that the government will not allow BW to include canal breaches (such as happened on the Mon & Brec twice this year, in both January and October) in this special pleading. If they don't, time to gather together another arsenal of the ammunition of protest.
You suggest that the Save Our Waterways campaign may have used up all its ammo a trifle early. As you wrote your blog we were attending the NABO AGM and later that evening we firmed up on the date and time of our next strategy meeting - 1100, December 1st at Foxton. Any activists that would like to attend please contact me at nbquidditch@dsl.pipex.com.
Meanwhile, suffice it to say that we have plenty of ammunition left and, more to the point, we have clearer targets to aim at; one of which is BW itself.
Cheers
Will Chapman
Posted by: Will Chapman | Monday, 19 November 2007 at 02:18 PM
It's certainly not good news and very many of us are extremely worried. There will be a response from Save Our Waterways shortly I guess.
Posted by: Debbi | Sunday, 18 November 2007 at 02:10 PM