The Battle of Audlem Locks

A David and Goliath battle between one of the country's biggest and newest charities and a young father trying to establish his business and provide for his family seems about to be settled with the charity doing everything in its power to crush the young man.

The charity is the Canal and River Trust, the first and only fruit of David Cameron's Big Society, which was created to take over the former British Waterways and look after the UK's unique canal system.

The young family man is Danny George, father of two, who gained the former British Waterways' permission to establish a small shop beside a canal lock at Audlem to sell his local reared pork and poultry and to grow vegetables on the waste land by the lock.

From the start a couple of years ago passing boaters and people in the village were delighted at this innovative and sensible use of a piece of waste land and a tatty brick-built lock shed and Danny's business grew. He eventually needed more space and created a wooden lean-to addition to the lock shed and expanded his vegetable beds to take in more of the waste land.

And that was when he upset the mandarins of the Canal and River Trust (CaRT), who started to try to close him down.

A petition on the Internet, signed by hundreds of boaters, gave them some pause for thought and CaRT promised to do everything in their power to ensure Danny could remain by the lockside and keep his business.

According to boaters and others who have been giving their time to help Danny negotiate with CaRT, they exhibited little understanding of the fact that they were dealing with a young man starting out in business rather than a big company. However, just before Christmas everyone was convinced Danny and the CaRT had finally agreed a deal that would involve him replacing the the lean-to shed with something better.

CaRT had suggested a Portakabin, despite claiming to be concerned about the 'heritage value' of the lockside site. Danny wanted to put up a temporary building more in keeping with the wooden constructions used by CaRT itself to house canal stop planks.

However, he indicated that it would take some time to put the money together and that seems to be when CaRT lost patience and decided George's Pork and Poultry was the the chop.

The Trust obviously knew that the decision would bring the wrath of boaters and local people on their heads and briefed their public relations spin doctors who operate on Facebook and Twitter to make their case.

The CaRT decided to issue Danny George with notice to quit – a decision which will not only destroy his business but also make it even more difficult to care for his two children who, he says, are about to be formally diagnosed as autistic.

Despite this the Trust, led in this instance by Wendy Capelle the Waterway Manager for
North Wales and Borders, decided to have a go at Danny, all guns blazing.

In special briefing document and in emails they asserted that not only had he not submitted plans for changes on time he had grown vegetables waste land not authorised by them and had gone outside the lease agreement.

CaRT complained Danny's lean-to and subsequent building designs were out of keeping with the heritage value of the existing hut.

They also played the health and safety card, claiming to be concerned about people having to cross the lock beams to buy their vegetables. That was laughed out of court as boaters from across the country pointed out that thousands of of them cross lock beams every year and that, within 200 yards of the business there are locks that have to be crossed from the towpath to reach moorings on the offside and there is another canal-side shop by the top lock at Adderley where buyers have to cross the lock beam to buy eggs and cakes.

Wendy Capelle first distanced herself from the heritage excuse for closing down Danny's business. In an email to me she said: “With respect to the suggestion of a Portacabin we were simply trying to put the point across to Mr George that any proposals would be considered, he simply did not provide anything up until the end of January, having been initially asked in May 2012. It was used in the context that there are some available which have water and WC facilities integrated which were one of Mr George’s requirements.”

So much for heritage then, but what about the flawed health and safety argument ?

I asked Wendy Capelle: “Just how is it safe for the public to cross locks on the same flight carrying their shopping back to CaRT offside moorings, or to carry food across from the shop on Adderley locks but not safe for Danny's customers?”

Ms Capelle's response was to back away from that argument and pass the buck to the estates department. She e-mailed back: “The decision to serve notice was due to the non-compliance of the terms of Mr George’s current licence, rather than any health and safety issues regarding people crossing the locks.”

So everything her PR people had been telling online protestors and the media about health and safety is now admitted to be a smokescreen and nothing to with their decision to evict Danny.

Then boaters in Facebook forums offered to crowd-fund Danny's new building. Would Ms Capelle halt the eviction to allow that to happen?

The only answer was more buck-passing: “I will forward your email onto my national colleagues who are dealing with the tenancy.”

Meanwhile the anti Danny George campaign by CaRT's online team had escalated a further step. One Anja – no surname supplied – had taken to sending private messages on Facebook that can only be described as part of a smear campaign.

She claimed: “You must understand that we have really tried to help him again and again, this is not our fault.”

Saying she didn't 'want to slander Danny' she went on to label him as abusive and aggressive claiming 'he is not an easy person to work with'.

She also claimed, in obvious outrage: 'he started planting vegetables all over the place without our permission.'

It is not clear whether this hate campaign was authorised not at what level permission was given to CaRT's spin doctors to destroy the reputation of a small businessman working hard to provide a living for his young family.

The fact that such tactics are being employed by a large and powerful national charity must be disturbing to everyone who loves the canals and wants to see them thrive and prosper with a wealth of innovative small businesses like Danny George's popping up everywhere.

I would suggest this shows an organisation out of control and the elected and non-elected members of the Canal and River Trusts' Council need to be asking some serious questions about the motives and tactics of their paid officials.

Canal threat to regeneration

REGENERATION schemes across Greater Manchester worth hundreds of millions of pounds could be damaged - thanks to what one Labour ex-minister describes as ‘an almighty cock up’ and ‘criminal irresponsibility’ by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs over the handling of subsidies to farmers.
The link between a rural scandal and a threat to the rebuilding of depressed city areas comes because Defra has decided to raid the grants it makes to its client organisations.
One of those is British Waterways which faces seeing £70m ripped from its budget to help make up for Defra’s £200m shortfall - caused by what Labour MP Michael Meacher says is ‘criminal irresponsibility’ over the handling of £1.5bn of European farm subsidies.
As a result, hundreds of miles of canals are now facing neglect and possible closure – especially the recently re-opened Rochdale and Huddersfield Narrow canals as well as the Ashton and Peak Forest canals.
In Manchester those canals are key to major regeneration schemes including hundreds of millions being spent in East Manchester where canals are so important they have even built the first new one for 250 years – a short stretch linking the Rochdale and the Ashton canals.
Despite intense pressure for silent compliance from Defra, British Waterways will unattributably brief anyone who will listen that the budget cuts will leave them unable to keep canals maintained and a catastrophic incident could soon close vulnerable canals completely, as they would no longer have the money for repairs.
The Rochdale and Huddersfield Narrow canals are particularly susceptible as they were reopened on a shoestring and are in a fragile state. The Rochdale has only recently reopened for a second time after a £2m, 18-month long, repair - just the sort of problem that could close it completely in the future.
Defra’s decision has left many of the region’s MPs fuming and Michael Meacher, who has the Rochdale Canal passing through his Oldham constituency is organising a deputation of regional MPs to Barry Gardiner the junior minister who has responsibility for waterways at Defra.
Tony Lloyd, the Labour MP whose central Manchester constituency includes the massive East Manchester regeneration area describes the canals as the ‘blue lung’ of the city.
“If this goes ahead we are likely to see the canals become inadequately maintained then restricted or closed. That is just not a direction we ought to be going in.”
He believes such a development would ‘tarnish the regeneration effort’ making it less than it could be.
“It is not just New Islington that needs the canals, it is the council estates further out. I don’t want to go back to the days when people were afraid to walk along the canal bank.
“The Manchester canals are some of the jewels in Defra’s crown and it doesn’t cost much to keep it polished.”
Tameside Labour MP, David Heyes said: “I have four canals in my constituency. It really makes no sense to have invested so heavily in refurbishing all these canals in recent years and for that investment to be - potentially - at risk.
“Many of the economic development aims for the constituency are being promoted and marketed around the attractions of their waterside locations. This is certainly true in Failsworth, Hollinwood, Droylsden and town centre Ashton.
“To lose those benefits in some of our least prosperous urban locations would be a real irony if it is to compensate for a cock-up in paying farm subsidies to what are often the most prosperous rural areas.”
There is cross-party support and Rochdale’s Liberal MP Paul Rowen is demanding a meeting with Defra Secretary of State David Milliband, “to discuss exactly why British Waterways have had their grant cut and I want a firm assurance that Rochdale Canal will not be under threat.
“It is not acceptable that one of the jewels in Rochdale’s crown is threatened in this way.”
Michael Meacher wants to know why the Defra has not sacked the civil servants responsible for the “almighty cock-up” over subsidy payments.
He said: “It is not acceptable there should be any cuts in British Waterways budget. It is completely indefensible and inequitable that our flagship policy of urban regeneration around canals should be affected.
“This is vandalism and I will be asking Barry Gardiner to accept a delegation of MPs from the areas affected and asking him to explain himself.”
In Tameside, Labour councillor Kieran Quinn, who has responsibility for regeneration, said: “Stalybridge has been transformed from a sleepy town to an exciting commercial centre by regeneration around the canal and we know that a living canal brings social regeneration as well.
“We also see the same thing happening at Droylsden where a whole redevelopment is to happen around the canal. If we don’t have a open and useable canal people will look at the whole scheme differently.
“We support British Waterways to retain their grant in full and we will be lobbying Defra and the Treasury.”
Leader of Oldham Council, Councillor David Jones said: “We see the Rochdale Canal as central to the continued redevelopment of Chadderton and Failsworth centres. We will be seeking an urgent meeting with British Waterways to discuss the current situation and to try to resolve theses issues.“
It is ironic that just a few weeks earlier John Prescott’s farewell speech in the Labour conference in Manchester hailed the fact that the canals in the city has ‘become major engines of urban regeneration’ as one of the successes of his reign at the top of Defra.
Now Defra is hacking £9m from the already allocated British Waterways budget for this year and telling Chief Executive Robin Evans that he has to budget for cuts of £12m a year for the next five years under the Comprehensive Spending Review being considered by Cabinet in the coming months.
The draconian cuts this year have already meant vital maintenance work for this winter has been cancelled on British Waterways’ 2,200 miles of navigable canals and rivers. Eugene Baston, of British Waterways, said: " If we can't maintain the waterways, we can't keep them open.”
Bolton based John Fletcher is National Chairman of The Inland Waterways Association and heads up the efforts to reopen the disused Manchester Bolton and Bury Canal – planned to be a vital catalyst in the regeneration of much of Salford.
He said: “The next few years could reverse all the progress of the last ten years and the Rochdale and Huddersfield Narrow canals are especially vulnerable because they are fragile and there will be no funds to repair and re-open them if something expensive goes wrong – and that could happen tomorrow.
“British Waterways and the other partners could even be compelled to repay the lottery grants if the canals are not kept open and that could bankrupt the whole organisation.
“It is ridiculous that this should be put at risk because Defra cannot pay farmers on time. It seems that they are less fit for purpose than the Home Office.”
Restored canals are now seen as the engine of regeneration. Much of the redevelopment of inner city East Manchester is built around the canal system, with Urban Splash’s remarkable new CHIPS building to be constructed along side a new canal, linking the Ashton with the Rochdale soon after they split, rising out of the city centre.
The reopening of the Huddersfield Narrow and Rochdale canals has already brought new development in places like Stalybridge, Failsworth and Mossley, with more to come.
There seems no limit to the investment that working canals can attract.
Work has started to build a new £25m canal-side marina in Greenfield, in Oldham featuring luxury homes, offices, shops, restaurants and bars.
It is in East Manchester that Urban Splash is a key player in the New Islington development and Nick Johnson, Deputy Chief Executive, said: “I don’t think it will affect the decision to go ahead with the East Manchester regeneration, but I am disappointed.
“It is very frustrating if the effect is to close parts of the waterways down. Fully 85 per cent of our developments are next to water because we believe that brings something quite special.
“The whole concept of New Islington has been built around creating a community that includes people living on and working from boats.
“If the canals are closed we lose one of the dimensions of the development at New Islington which is important to the whole regeneration.
“It is rooted in tradition and the canals are part of rebuilding a sustainable community.
“Government sometimes don’t understand what makes a regeneration sustainable and living, moving canals are part of the whole picture.”
Tom Russell, who heads up the New East Manchester Urban Regeneration Company, is reluctant to discuss what he believes to be ‘speculation’ about possible canal closures. Of course, he also looks to the Treasury for some of his funding.
British Waterways initial response to Defra’s demand for £60m more in budget cuts has been to come up with a package offering cuts of £5m a year rather than Defra’s £12m – but even that it means losing 180 jobs by April as well as cuts in essential canal maintenance.
The additional £7m a year being demanded by Defra would certainly impact on vulnerable canals according to the experts inside and outside the organisation.
So far the junior minister responsible for waterways, Barry Gardiner, has refused to address the potential problems faced by those trying to regenerate inner city areas using the canals.
His spokesman would only offer a bland general statement issued to all journalists, which praises the past successes of British Waterways and goes on to say: “… whilst Defra wishes to do everything it can to support the vision of British Waterways' board, they are aware that Defra is now operating within a very tight fiscal regime.
"We are grateful for the constructive way British Waterways has engaged with the department to identify efficiency savings and remain confident that British Waterways will continue to deliver real public benefit and regeneration in the future."
Within the region the only MP willing to stand up for Defra’s attempts to cut the waterways budget is another government minister, Phil Woolas, also representing Oldham, who has responsibility for local government and community cohesion – including neighbourhood renewal.
He said: “I am not convinced of British Waterway's case. I do not have the information yet but I am wary of such press reports, particularly when they play politics in the CSR period. To say that the waterways are being cut because of a ‘Defra cock up’ is presumptuous. The future financial allocations are not yet known and it is out of order for British Waterways to lobby in this way.” He failed to answer follow-up questions about his curious stance.