How not to make friends for the waterways

Sally Ash strikes again! The poorly titled Head of Boating for British Waterways has acquired a reputation as something of a pit bull when it comes to dealing with boaters.
She seems to find it difficult to relate to boaters in any way and usually fails to understand how valuable boats are to the waterways. Many report the feeling that her ideal is a canal and river system with all the boaters neatly penned in marina.
Now, as the Guardian reports, she is using the Olympics as an excuse to hound live-aboard boaters off the River Lea.
If British Waterways is to become an effective charity it will need something more than local councils and the 'great and good' to enable it to keep the canal system going. Most of all, it will need the support of those people who know the canals and rivers best, the people who spend most of their lives on boats on the system.
Sally Ash has done little in her time in office but alienate not just boaters but several of the voluntary organisations linked with the waterways. I wonder if she hasn't become more of a liability than an asset at a time when British Waterways needs friends like never before.
Two things would help - the departure of Sally Ash and the over-paid directors like Robin Evans halving their enormous salaries.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/sport/2011/mar/09/houseboaters-socially-cleansed-olympics