Letters from private individuals, and from waterway businesses and local communities, to relevant arms of the Government are an important part of any campaign.
You should at least write to your MP. If you have time you should consider wrting further letters as suggested below. Each of them should include some of the general points outlined below, but each should also be targeted to the recipient:
For contact details of your MP, go to this web site.
This is the most important letter, as your own MP is the only one with an obligation to reply to you.
Many MPs have responded favourably, and the campaign has prompted a number of questions and debates in the Commons (see here for details). A number of Early Day Motions have been signed by over 200 MPs of all parties. The Liberal Democrats formally supported our campaign by a resolution at their Spring Conference.
We need this to continue, so we need to keep up the pressure on MPs. If you've already written to them, now's the time for a second, or even a third, letter. We also want a change of emphasis at this stage. Although the sources of the problem lie within DEFRA, it is very clear that there can't be a solution without some extra money from central resources, so we should now all be asking our MPs to press the Chancellor to address our concerns.
• Use the various Parliamentary Questions and Adjournment debates linked to from our In Parliament page to get some ideas for questions to ask.
• Talk about the benefits given by specific waterways (if there are any) with your MP's constituency, including regeneration, open space, wildlife, industrial heritage.
• Use local examples.
• Ask the MP to take the matter up on your behalf with Hilary Benn MP (Environment Minister), Jonathan Shaw MP (Waterways Minister) and Alistair Darling MP (Chancellor of the Exchequer). If they do so, your MP will be obliged to seek a response along with giving his or her own views on the proposed cuts. Suggest to your MP that in doing so, they might like to use some of the points listed below.
• Ask for their continued support by raising questions in the House.
• Point out that the funding plans for 2007-8, announced by DEFRA on 22 December perpetuate the post-cuts level of funding for BW. There's useful information and comment on this on the IWA web site, which also has a press release which challenges him on the grounds that these figures are at odds with his earlier statements.
We have a list of MPs through whose constituencies pass canals or waterways (Excel document).
In addition, we have a list of Labour MPs in marginal constituencies through which pass canals or waterways, who have a particular interest in not losing potential votes, but all MPs should be contacted.
Jonathan Shaw MP, Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Defra, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR.
• Once again, make use of examples local to the constituency.
• Talk about the threat to both direct and indirect benefits given by the waterways such as education, community, economic uplift, exercise, activity, leisure, heritage.
• Mention to the economic, environmental and heritage value of living waterways.
• Ask for an assurance that current threats of reduced grant are false and that BW will be supported.
• Ask why BW, waterways users and waterside communities, should be penalised for mismanagement of the Rural Farm Payments scheme and the cost of precautions against Avian Flu.
• Seek a timetable for implementation of the final decisions.
• Point out that nowadays the waterways are so well-used and popular that a serious threat to them would be a vote-loser.
• Point out that the grant levels announced for next year perpetuate the cuts which he said several times were for one year only.
The Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, Secretary of State, Defra, Nobel House, 17 Smith Square, London SW1P 3JR.
• Ask him to decide that reasonable grant levels to BW (at least £60m yearly) will be maintained for the next three years.
• Suggest that making the waterways and their users foot part of the bill for failings in an entirely different part of DEFRA is an unfair penalty.
• Ask if the Government's current policy document Waterways for Tomorrow is now defunct. Ask specific questions about progress in implementing some specific recommendations in this document.
The Rt Hon Alistair Darling MP, Chancellor of the Exchequer, HM Treasury, 1 Horse Guards Road, London SW1A 2HQ.
• Make some of the general points below, and those listed for the Environment Secretary.
• Point out the unfairness in making the millions of people who enjoy the waterways in one way or another pay a share of a financial shortfall in a totally separate area of DEFRA.
• Argue in particular than any part of this shortfall which is caused by EU-imposed fines of witholding of grant by the EU is a penalty imposed on the UK Government and should therefore be met from Government central funds.
• Point out that the sums of money involved, while huge in waterways terms, are tiny in Government terms.
• the facts about the cuts as set out on the What's it all About? and The Full Story pages of this site.
• the pleasure of visiting waterways, whether by boat, on foot or by cycle.
• the contribution to society made by a living waterways system, including the thriving leisure economy they host and the burgeoning shoots of a possible re-growth of waterborne freight as an ecologically-friendlier mode of transport that will ease road congestion.
• how the cuts threaten the real progress that has been made under the Government's Waterways for Tomorrow policy and
• an individual or local focus relevant to yourself as the writer.
You might also like to make some of the same points listed above in letters to the national or local press.
Your aim there will be to raise awareness with other readers. If writing to a local paper, attention could be drawn to local issues or local canal infrastructure that could be at risk if maintenance budgets are cut.