CHEDDLETON AND STAFFORDSHIRE MOORLANDS TO SHOW GOVERNMENT THE VALUE OF INLAND WATERWAYS

IWA Stoke on Trent branch Press Release
Date: 26 February 2007

Local MP and volunteers lead nationwide campaign against Defra's 'careless' cuts in funding for canals and rivers

A Waterway Community Day will be take place on Sunday 4 March between 12 noon - 3 pm, in the village of Cheddleton beside the Caldon Canal in the Staffordshire Moorlands. Everybody is invited to come down to the canal for a walk, a fun afternoon out and to show how we use and value the canal in our community - and demonstrate to Government the value of a vibrant waterway to us, communities roundabout , local economies and the nation.

Local residents and all users of the canal - walkers, anglers, cyclists, canoeists, rowers, runners, environmentalists, along with local businesses who benefit from visitors - are invited to spend the afternoon enjoying a walk along the Caldon Canal at Cheddleton to see the historic Flint Mill and water wheels, traditional narrow boats, canal art and displays canal heritage, fishing and much more.

There will also be the opportunity to go 'WOW' and enjoy some Wild Over Waterways activities, including a new WOW 'I-spy' discovery trail devised especially so that children - and visitors of all ages - can discover more about all the things our waterways are used for.

The afternoon is centred around the Caldon Canal as it passes through the Cheddleton Village Conservation Area and the Flint Mill - nestling between the canal and River Churnet. This section of towpath is used daily by local walkers and regularly by long distance ramblers visiting the Churnet Valley. From here routes radiate out to the historic village Church and tea rooms, the nearby Steam heritage railway, a sub aqua diving centre, the renowned Boat, Holly Bush and Black Lion canal-side pubs at Cheddleton, Denford and Consall Forge, the Staffordshire Way and onward to Etruria, Stoke-on-Trent, Leek, Rudyard Lake, Froghall and Uttoxeter.

Members of the Inland Waterways Association Stoke on Trent branch, the Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals Trust, Stoke-on-Trent Boat Club, the Beatrice Charity - the trip boat for children with a need to get afloat - and Cheddleton Flint Mill Industrial Heritage Trust will stage displays about waterway-related activities in the Staffordshire Moorlands, nearby Stoke-on-Trent and throughout the waterway network that the Caldon Canal connects into. (Other interested local organisations are invited to attend. Contact: 01538 361138)

Staffordshire Moorlands MP, Charlotte Atkins, will also host a special outdoor "MP Advice Surgery" so constituents can tell her how important the Caldon Canal is as part of their day-to-day life and their business livelihood. This information will support the campaign she is leading in Parliament calling upon Government to reverse the recent cuts in funding levels imposed upon British Waterways and the Environment Agency and to ensure secure, long-term funding for inland waterways.

Local waterways organisations are concerned that reduced levels of funding, following on from the recently imposed DEFRA cuts, will decrease maintenance and increase the risk of deterioration of our waterways heritage and structural failure - which would impact upon all users of the Caldon Canal and be very detrimental to local businesses and the economy of North Staffordshire. Visitors to the event will be invited to sign a petition that Charlotte Atkins will present in the House of Commons.

Everybody is invited to come down to the Caldon Canal at Cheddleton on Sunday 4 March - enjoy your waterway today, and demonstrate how waterways help keep our community alive!

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PHOTOS Photo follows : Caldon Canal at Cheddleton with boaters, canoeists and walkers © Julie Arnold / Waterway Images - free use for this event.

PRESS CALL: Cheddleton Waterway Community Day Sunday 4 March 2007, 12 noon - 3 pm with PHOTO CALL at 2pm Caldon Canal, Flint Mill, Cheddleton, Staffordshire Moorlands, ST13 7HL Near where the A520 crosses the Caldon Canal, at bridge 42, Grid ref. SJ 974 526

For further Information contact: Julie Arnold, IWA Stoke-on-Trent branch & Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals Trust (Also campaign coordinator for The Inland Waterways Association) Tel: 07712 897075 E-mail: julie@waterwayimages.com

Notes for Editors:

The event is being staged by a partnership team of the following waterway organisations:

The Inland Waterways Association (IWA) is a registered charity, founded in 1946, which advocates the conservation, use, maintenance, restoration and development of the inland waterways for public benefit. IWA has over 18,000 members whose interests include boating, towing path walking, industrial archaeology, nature conservation and many other activities associated with the inland waterways. Information provided by 188 corporate members with their own membership structures has revealed that they, in themselves, have a combined membership of at least 59,500 in support of IWA's voice. The membership of IWA Stoke-on-Trent branch extends throughout north Staffordshire and south Cheshire; they campaign to increase awareness of their local waterways - the Caldon, Trent & Mersey and Macclesfield Canals. (Reg. Charity No.212342)

IWA works closely with navigation authorities, other waterway bodies, a wide range of national and local authorities, voluntary, private and public sector organisations to raise funds, lobby for support and encourage public participation. The Association also supplies voluntary labour through its subsidiary Waterway Recovery Group.

More than 500 miles of canals and navigable rivers have been re-opened to public use since the Association was founded in 1946. Currently another 500 miles of derelict inland waterways are now the subject of restoration plans.

Further information can be found at www.waterways.org.uk and www.wrg.org.uk.

The Caldon & Uttoxeter Canals Trust aims to restore, preserve, maintain in good order and improve the existing Caldon Canal and all the former arms of the canal including the branch known as the Uttoxeter Canal (to which the Caldon Canal is currently the only link) - for the use and benefit of the public. Previously known as the Caldon Canal Society, the organisation was formed by enthusiasts in 1963 in response to notices closing the canal after traffic had declined in the 1950s. Volunteers began the restoration works and in 1974 the Caldon Canal was reopened, the Society having been instrumental in bringing about a partnership agreement between Staffordshire County Council, Stoke-on-Trent City Council and British Waterways Board. This spirit continues today, with our new title reflecting our extended aims. (Reg. Charity No. 259766)

Stoke-on-Trent Boat Club - founded in 1957 - moved from Stoke to Endon on the Caldon Canal in the 1970's, when the A500 "D-road" was built across their original home. The club's aim is the promotion of boating on inland waterways and elsewhere. They particularly advocate boating in their area of the Staffordshire Moorlands - where the Caldon Canal follows the river into the beautiful Churnet Valley.

The North Staffs Handicapped Children's Boat Committee was conceived in 1976 by IWA Stoke-on-Trent Branch to provide a boat for children with special needs in North Staffordshire and South Cheshire. It was renamed and re-registered as The Beatrice Charity in 2002. Beatrice - the charity's purpose-designed passenger boat - is based at from where it provides day-trips for children with a need to get afloat. (Reg. Charity No. 1089860)

Cheddleton Flint Mill Industrial Heritage Trust. Cheddleton Flint Mill is a fine example of a water mill that ground flint for the pottery industry. The site features two water mills, a small museum, a miller's cottage, traditional narrow-boat and many other exhibits. The site is open to the public. The Cheddleton Flint Mill Preservation Trust was formed in 1967 to preserve the unique mill complex and provide educational information concerning the historical development of pottery raw materials. In 1972 the Trust widened its objectives to encompass more of Britain's Industrial Heritage and became the Cheddleton Flint Mill Industrial Heritage Trust. The whole complex is considered of great historical importance and has been given Grade II* listed building status by English Heritage. (Reg. Charity No. 254196, Reg. Museum No. 834)

www.people.ex.ac.uk/akoutram/cheddleton-mill/

Background -Defra's cuts to the funding of inland waterways
For the latest information visit:

www.waterways.org.uk/News/DefraFundingCuts

The government sponsored navigation authorities in England and Wales receive their grant-in-aid from the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

Owing to apparent calamitous mismanagement within the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), it has been unable to meet its obligations. This was first realised during March 2006, when the first cut to British Waterways' budget was made. Since then, the Department's financial position has worsened. The department must pay a large fine to the European Union for its failure to make prompt payments to farmers via the Rural Payments Agency. The Department has also incurred substantial overspends in correcting the systems that makes payments to farmers and on some other projects. No further funding is available from Treasury so the Department has decided to cut further the budgets of its responsibilities other than those related to payments to farmers.

British Waterways grant-in-aid for the financial year April 2006 to March 2007 was been cut by a further 7.5% (£4.5 million) in addition to the 5% (approximately £3.1 million) cut that was made in March 2006. (A further cut of 2.5% (£1.5 million) planned for autumn 2006 was not made after strong protests by IWA and others).

Late in the afternoon of 22nd December 2006 (the last working day before Christmas), DEFRA announced its budget allocations for 2007 - 2008 for its sponsored bodies and executive agencies, including British Waterways and the Environment Agency. The figure for British Waterways is £57.55 million, which excludes the grant made by the Scottish Executive for waterways in Scotland, but includes £2.048m for the repayment of a loan from the National Loans Fund (for upgrade of the Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation), which was agreed under 'Waterways for Tomorrow' six years ago.

The net figure for comparison is therefore £55.5 million, which is similar to 2006 - 2007, after the cuts in funding were made and with no allowance for inflation. BW's original budget for 2006 - 2007 was £62.5 million.

The total funding for the Environment Agency in 2007 - 2008 is to be £661 million, of which the navigation budget is a small amount, which is yet to be decided internally by the Agency. The Department's full announcement is available at

www.defra.gov.uk/news/2006/061222c.htm

Over the weekend of 25th/26th November 2006 a number of protest events took place blockading Britain's waterways network (and one in Sydney Harbour, Australia) in support of the campaign against the funding cuts. This was followed on Tuesday 16th January by The Palace of Westminster Campaign Cruise on the tidal River Thames when 30 boats, their crews and prominent supporters, including well-known actor David Suchet, took the concerns directly to Parliament. MPs from all parties watched the flotilla and met with representatives of the eleven waterways interest groups taking part in the collective alliance campaigning against the funding cuts.

Following the recent branding of the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs' (Defra's) financial management as "careless" and "over optimistic" by the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) Select Committee, now Defra's treatment of their inland waterway navigation authority agencies will come under even closer scrutiny with the commencement on Monday 26 February 2007 of another Efra Select Committee inquiry into the work of British Waterways, including the impact of Defra's cuts in funding for waterways.

On the afternoon of Monday 26 February 2007, The Inland Waterways Association is the first organisation to appear before this Efra Select Committee of MPs inquiring into the work of British Waterways.