I was hoping someone from Defra with a nuance of intelligence would 
have picked up on some of excellent points raised in this Sunday Times article on freeing our congested roads by using our rivers and sea more.
Each barge can carry the equivalent of more than 20 lorryloads, it surely must be an answer to so many of our problems. And as barges are already used in London to transport its rubbish out of the city (see pic), why not develop our waterways as a means of transporting other cargo around the country?
Well, it might have been a good idea at the weekend, but any hopes of it becoming reality have been scuppered by the latest Defra cock-up. They have given British Waterways a drastic £7 million drop in funding due to a £200m overspend – blamed partly on bird flu fears and new farm subsidies.
Why can’t they blame themselves for once, Margaret Beckett coming top of the list for letting down the British public again, for their incompetence.
This latest cock-up will result in the possibility of some of our waterways being closed, as well as 180 job losses, and more on the cards. I naturally wondered how Minister Miliband was engaging with his public on this important topic, but surprise surprise, not a word.
Unfortunately, I’m sure there will be many more stories like this to follow, it will be interesting to see what Miliband says in his feeble attempt to bridge the gap between politicians and the public.
What incompetance! Just when a solution comes up, the government closes the answer down.
Well spotted Ellee, not many others have picked up on this farce. I was going to put up one of my smart arse posts about it, but I backed off at the last minute because I realised the loss of 180 jobs due to more government incompetence was not a joking matter.
Hope that you can aim your considerable talents on to the expected mutation of the Bird Flu in to a human virus.
The-Best-Bird-Flu-Blogs-Team.
http://www.birdflubreakingnews.com
I will pass this link to my MEP’s office, he has been a rapporteur on bird flu and is obviously very concerned about what will happen in the UK and other countries over the next few weeks. Many thanks for the comment and link. I have checked out your site and found it fascinating, I shall post on this soon. I have also added you to my blogroll so I can keep up to date with the global bird flu scenario.
On a wider note the UK government is not keen on expanding Port infrastructure in the South East which is desperately needed.
They are even still considering P&O’s development at Shellhaven which is lunacy as the delay will mean it will pull workers away from the Olympic development.
Why government can’t see that increased port use will help to reduce road and rail congestion then they need is beyond me.
Anon, could you please send me a link, I would like to check out Blogfocus. My email address can be found on my CV at the top left side of my site.
Interesting note of incompetence there Ellee. However one of the issues with using water ays as a transport medium is that it takes longer these days to ship stuf that way, so what ever is going by water can’t be time critical. In these days of JIT it would have to be bulk low value stuff, like rubish.
Benedict, true to a certain extent, but companies will have to learn that they must use more environmentally forms of transport.