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Category: Other Live Issues
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All change at CRT

with new Regional Directors

 

CRT’s new regional structure was put in place on 4th June and the following Regional Directors have been appointed:

  • London & South East – Ros Daniels. She has extensive experience of the heritage and tourism sector, most recently as Head of Historic Properties, London at English Heritage. She has managed a variety of historic houses, gardens and countryside for English Heritage and the National Trust. Her waterway connection is that, in her spare time, she is a ‘keen canoeist and paddle boarder’. 
  • Wales & South West – Richard Thomas. He has had a long career in the Royal Navy, in which ‘he transited two canals’. He also says he wants to become a liveaboard boater, with ‘aspirations to live afloat on the canal in Gloucester.’
  • West Midlands – Adnan Saif. He has worked in senior positions in local government, regeneration and economic development, and is currently Chief Executive of the British Muslim Heritage Centre. He has also founded and led many non-governmental and voluntary organisations at local, European and international levels and he started a social enterprise initiative that seeks to improve leadership and service delivery in local government and civil society. He has no waterway connections.
  • East Midlands – Phil Mulligan. He is a professional third sector manager with management experience in the voluntary sector, notably as Chief Executive of the Landscape Institute, Executive Director of the United Nations Association UK, and Chief Executive of Environmental Protection UK. He is also a National Trust Council member, representing the Conservation Volunteers, an organisation on whose Board he served for five years. 
    He also had a key role in the Government's involvement in the creation of CRT as Vice Chair of Defra’s Civil Society Advisory Board. He has no known waterway connections.
  • Yorkshire & North East – Sean McGinley. He is currently the East Midlands Waterway Manager, and has worked on the waterways in management and engineering posts for 16 years. H
  • North West – Daniel Greenhalgh is the interim Regional Director, (for up to 12 months). He was a site engineer for a Liverpool civil engineering contractor before joining the waterways in 2005. He is a senior manager at CRT, responsible for major canal infrastructure projects and formerly the delivery of all the Trust’s operational contracts.

 

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Category: NN Chairman's Column
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If only the trust would listen

Stella Ridgeway responds to the letter to boaters from Richard Parry

Why is it boaters feel so disenfranchised by CRT? Why is it that CRT staff, who are paid to enrol people on the towpath as Friends, now don’t bother to approach boaters? The constant PR push over the last couple of years celebrates initiatives that rarely involve boats. Instead, walkers, cyclists, anglers and canoeists are targeted and welcomed in increasing numbers - come in, it’s a free resource. The latest rebranding only cost £60k, honestly! New expensive signs have sprung up, seemingly overnight, alongside the canals and are directed at those who already know where the canal is – not the 7 million who supposedly don’t.  Millions spent on new cycle routes, walkways, canoe routes ‒ yes it’s grant funded, but where are the grants to repair the listed locks and bridges?

Read more: If only the trust would listen

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Category: Boater Safety
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Crime prevention

The Regents Canal and surrounding area is experiencing increased robberies and burglaries and the Bow West Safer Neighbourhood Team, CRT and the Metropolitan Police have issued the following advice to boaters, which is applicable in any urban area:

Don’t make your boat attractive to thieves

Thieves are always on the lookout for easy targets.

Read more: Crime prevention

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Category: NN Editorials
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Editorial

From the Middle Level to the high seas

Editor, Peter Fellows has a diverse edition for Spring.

I was pleased to see that CRT has suspended the sale of the freehold to Blowers Green Pumphouse (see January’s NABO News), but wish that the relevant advisory groups could review such proposals before they go ahead. CRT has published the results of its licensing consultation, reviewed by Mark Tizard. Most narrowboaters will have to pay about 5% more for their licences year-on-year, so the exercise was not exactly ‘revenue-neutral’ – at least not for boaters. Widebeam owners will have to pay more, but not as much as many feared. During the review, many boaters didn’t see the need for any changes, so with no majority agreement to change anything much, CRT can claim to have listened to its ‘customers’. However, it is difficult to see how the outcome will reduce CRT’s licensing costs, as the system now seems to be more complicated, rather than the intended simplification.

Read more: NABO News Editorial April 2018