Welcome

The Column of the National Chairman

As I look around the waterways just now it seems a bit more like springtime than summertime, with everything just beginning to emerge om what feels like a very long winter – boat-owners and hirers are taking to the water once more, most canalside businesses are beginning to reopen, and the buzz and bustle on the towpath are ge ing back to normal levels, albeit with the awkwardness of social distancing.

In the past three months we have brought many new initiatives to uition as we were jolted out of our normal ways of working. One of the real successes has been the introduction of the Waterway Webinar series, which has united the Association and the wider waterways communi around areas of shared, topical interest. I encourage everyone to visit IWA’s YouTube channel and catch up with the recordings – there really is something for everyone! Take a look at the website too, and sign up for the talks we have planned in the lead up to our AGM and to celebrate our 75th anniversary.

Another highlight for me has been joining the weekly sta meeting on Zoom, where I have shared my thoughts, updated others on how things are moving forward, and heard how the impossibly busy schedule of activities that the team has been working on is progressing.

I am delighted that the handover to our new chief executive, Sarah O’Grady, has been completed (see News on p8). Sarah will be with us for the next six months during which we will be continuing the search for a new permanent chief executive.

In the last edition of Waterways, we outlined the process by which we planned to select new trustees. The request for members to apply to be trustees was met with huge interest and resulted in 17 candidates, all of whom bring incredible skills, passion and commitment to the Association. I was very pleased to see so many applications and it certainly gave the panel a huge challenge in selecting those who would fi ll the six vacancies. I would like to take the opportuni to most sincerely thank the members of the panel – Ray Alexander, Sir Robert Atkins, Dave Chapman, Clive Henderson, Audrey Smith, Paul Strudwick and Mike Sumner – for their hard work through May and June.

I was honoured to have been reappointed as a trustee and I will be joined by a esh cohort of new colleagues – Philippa Bursey, Nick Dybeck, Sue O’Hare, Ian Sesnan and Alison Woodhams – all of whom bring a wide range of skills and experience that will be invaluable to the governance of the Association. I am also looking forward to working with all those applicants who weren’t selected but who will, equally, be able to contribute greatly to our work.

That work continues apace across a very wide ont. IWA is active at national, regional and local levels across as diverse a range of issues as the sustainabili of the waterways network, the pressures on restoration programmes, planning and heritage ma ers, and the environment. I would like to applaud our teams of experts in restoration, planning and heritage for their tireless work in responding to the continuing threat to the waterways. It’s crucial that we continue to demonstrate our strong leadership both within the Association and across the whole waterways ecosystem.

I can’t hide my ustration at De a’s disrespect for the waterways during this crisis and their indi erence towards the strong evidence presented to them by IWA, in collaboration with AINA, British Marine, Broads Authori and Canal & River Trust. Our joint campaign demonstrated the need for government intervention but our requests have so far fallen on deaf ears. In online meetings of the All-Par Parliamentary Group for the Waterways and in a meeting with the Minister, Rebecca Pow, the risk to waterways businesses and to the sustainabili of the system as a whole met with intransigence and inaction (see News on p9).

I would like to thank those IWA members who wrote to their MPs during this period, many of whom, in turn, wrote to the Minister and raised questions in Parliament. Unfortunately, these interventions have met with the same dismissive and platitude-ridden responses om the Minister. Her words in the adjournment debate in Parliament secured by our Parliamentary iend, Craig Williams, MP for Montgomeryshire, ring hollow in the light of her and her Department’s continued failure to act to support the sector (see News p.10). On a lighter note, August sees the beginning of IWA’s year of celebrations. We are 75 this year (August 2020 to August 2021) and Waterway Recovery Group turns 50 at the same time. In this issue we tell the story of Rolt and Aickman’s fi rst meeting and we meet Mr Mac, one of the legends of WRG. I hope you will be encouraged and inspired by his and other interviews, and in this auspicious month I thank you for your continued support, whether as a member or volunteer for the invaluable work of the Association.

Paul Rodgers