The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) today gave a cautious welcome to British Waterways’ (BW) announcement on restructuring. Whilst offering sympathy to those impacted by redundancy as a result of the moves by BW, IWA had previously been outspoken on the need for BW to trim what it perceived as a top heavy operation and as such saw the news of a slimming down of management posts as a necessary and unavoidable action. IWA also welcomed the news of likely savings of some £10 million per annum being made available for BW to use for waterways maintenance as a result of the changes.
Speaking on behalf of IWA, Clive Henderson national chairman said:
“No one likes to learn of redundancies, but we are living in lean times and British Waterways needs to make these changes. I congratulate British Waterways for grasping the nettle of top heavy structures of management that we had previously criticised; and we welcome the huge savings that are expected to be realised, which will allow British Waterways to carry out essential works which the funding deficit would otherwise have prevented.”