Toby's Clark's blog, below, shows a picture of a truck in Venice. But some people are seriously thinking about moving goods by water, not by truck. That was the subject of a six page article in the Sunday Times this week.
While the Sunday Times goes totally over the top, there is a place for some freight moving by ship to avoid congested roads. A few years ago B&Q developed a service where containers were broken down at Rotterdam and taken by smaller ports in the UK to service its Doncaster distribution centre without having to go through the congested Southampton and southern roads. The Sunday Times correctly reports that two thirds of containers coming into Southampon will be delivered by road north of Birmingham. But it is an expensive service and few other companies have joined B&Q. . The idea of large amounts of freight moving around the country by boat is an illusion. It has its role but the plan descibed by the Sunday Times has holes below the waterline and will rapidly sink without trace. The only problem is that the Government may well be taken in by it.
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These developments may become academic if British Waterways has to cut 180 jobs, as reported by the BBC - and (over a month ago) by Practical Boat Owner.
DEFRA is threatening to cut the agency's budget by 15%, which may result in canals being forced to close.
British Waterways is apparently blaming DEFRA's overspending on the farm subsidy system, while DEFRA itself is blaming the bird flu crisis!
Still, every cloud has a silver lining: DEFRA is also thinking about cutting the Environment Agency's funding - so the flytippers should be able to fill in all those unused canals without hindrance...
Posted by Toby Clark | October 10, 2006 10:03 AM
Posted on October 10, 2006 10:03