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Viewers of BBC TV’s “Look East” programme may have seen the September 30th interview
with Jamie Campbell, a fondly respected sailor and author residing in Gorleston-
In the brief air-
If you missed the broadcast, click on the BBC Look East logo.
In response to Jamie’s presentation to TV viewers, The Broads Authority’s Waterways Manager Trudi Wakelin said that the Authority was hoping for an extended level of funding commitment from Government but offered no positive plan for recovery.
We have been afforded sight of the complaint document and reproduce it here in order that readers will have a full understanding during the official complaint procedure.
Formal Complaint about the Broads Authority.
The Broads Authority is charged under the 1988 Broads Act with:
· Protecting the interests of navigation and
· Promoting the enjoyment of the Broads by the public.
as two out of three statutory objectives.
The interests of navigation and public enjoyment of the Broads coincide to a large extent. By far the best way to see the Broads is by boat – indeed access by car or foot is often difficult and country roads unsuitable for intensification of traffic.
Value to the local economy
The most recent Cambridge estimate of the value of Broads tourism produced for the Broads Authority amounted to £146m per annum for 1998. The Broads Authority’s 30,290 hectares have been estimated (by the Countryside Agency) to contain a population consisting of a mere 2,000 economically active individuals (out of 5,000 total population). Tourism is the largest local industry and employment and economic benefits are felt far outside the Broads Authority’s narrow geographic boundaries. Many significant centres of Broads tourism (for example Wroxham Barns, Clippesby holiday village) lie some distance outside these boundaries. The value of local tourism has declined significantly since 1998 and in the absence of an official estimate, some informed observers feel this may be as much as a fifty per cent reduction. The Broads Authority has presided in state over substantial declines in both navigation and their tourism industry.
In addition to tourism, the Norfolk & Suffolk Broads are a traditional centre of boatbuilding and supports building, repair, moulding and marine fabrication estimated as comfortably exceeding £100m, a figure which includes significant export earnings. Large sections of the Broads marine industry (Bridgeland Moulders, Trend Products, Aquafibre, Haines Boats, Hardy’s, Jeckells Sails, Macnamara Sails, the International Boatbuilding Training College) lie outside the Broads Authority’s boundaries.
The Norfolk & Suffolk Broads are a man made landscape. (Lambert, Jennings et al. Pub. Royal Geographical Society. 1960). Nature conspires to turn the Broads back into peat bogs and if man fails to maintain the Broads, they will be lost. Lambert & Jennings estimated the original depth of the mediaeval peat diggings to have been in the region of eight feet – although a number of main ‘arteries’ have historically been dredged to a greater depth. Over centuries, large areas of open water have been lost and the process of open water turning back into dry land is well documented. The respected local naturalist Ted Ellis, in his book ‘The Broads’ (pub. Collins. New Naturalist series.1965) warned that the last two feet of water disappear very quickly. Once sunlight is able to reach a muddy, enriched bottom, weed growth quickly reaches the surface.
Negligent Management of the waterways.
We wish to register a formal complaint that the Broads Authority has been negligent in its statutory duties of protecting both the interests of navigation on the Norfolk & Suffolk Broads and promotion of the enjoyment of the Broads by the public. Dredging of these waterways has been insufficient to maintain them since the Authority took over this responsibility from the Great Yarmouth, Port & Haven Commissioners. (See Appendix A. Bar Chart giving tonnage of silt removed.) A large reduction in the volume of silt removed coincides with the Broads Authority adopting responsibility in the early 1980s and predates any legislative changes on spoil disposal. The fledgling Broads Authority even failed to request copies of GYP&HC’s soundings. Against this background the Broads Authority’s website acknowledges: “Over the last 60 years, rates of sedimentation have accelerated…..”
The extent of neglect of waterway maintenance is such that much of the Broads navigation should today be considered ‘at risk’ and may become unnavigable within ten to twenty years without substantial investment. This is confirmed by the Broads Authority’s recent Sediment Management Strategy (attached as Appendix B part 1 ; Appendix B part 2. This document confirms the Broads Authority’s negligence). This document shows that large areas of waterway fail to meet the Broads Authority’s own standards. It is now possible to estimate dates when important sections of these waterways will become impassable. The current need for a massive injection of capital to preserve the navigation is a direct result of the Broads Authority’s failure to carry out a workable programme of river maintenance from the date that body was handed statutory responsibility for protecting the interests of navigation.
The Broads Authority has consistently mismanaged river maintenance, although they have been warned on countless occasions, over many years, that their approach to river maintenance was unsustainable. Seven years ago, a formal assessment of dredging requirements stated that continuous expenditure of £500,000 per annum (£600k at current values) would be required to rectify the shortfall. This Broads Authority subcommittee was chaired by David Adler, current vice chairman of the Navigation Committee. Previous warnings also include approaches by local Members of Parliament on behalf of their constituents.
The Broads Authority has failed in recent years to employ qualified senior navigation staff. Other senior executives hold no obvious qualifications (or enthusiasm) for managing a harbour authority. Detailed knowledge of the river system and expert opinion has been available from their Navigation Committee but the Broads Authority’s response was encapsulated by attempts to reduce, demote or abolish the Navigation Committee and absorb their budget. The chairman of the Norfolk & Suffolk Boating Association commented at a recent public meeting that something was wrong where the Authority had managed to alienate people with decades of experience of yachting on the Broads. He omitted to mention that the river tolls paid by the group he represents provides around a third of the Broads Authority’s income.
Lack of dredging involves a measure of public safety. Yachts taking the ground (sudden deceleration) without warning, can easily cause inexperienced crews to fall overboard.
The Broads Authority has enjoyed a single success in maintaining navigable waters
– Barton Broad. Branded the ‘Clearwater 2000’ project, this major dredging exercise
is considered a success by both conservation and navigation lobbies and was largely
funded by the detergent industry and the Millennium fund. Lack of financial resources,
in the case of Barton Broad were not a deterrent. If the estimated 250,000 cubic
metres of silt removed from Barton Broad are taken out of the silt-
By way of contrast to their approach to navigable waters, the Broads Authority has been able to find funding for silt removal from a number of landlocked, unnavigable and often privately owned Broads, some even without public access. Examples of these are Alderfen Broad, Belaugh Broad, Pound End (fenced off from Blackhorse Broad – itself closed to the public for six months of the year), Cockshoot Broad, Hassingham Broad, Crome’s Broad and Barnby Broad). Public access lies close to the ethos and concept of National Parks.
Inefficient Management of Public Funds, River Toll Income and DEFRA grant.
The Broads Authority currently estimates that between £20m and £30m will be required to address the backlog of dredging the Authority has accumulated.
In 2000 it was decided to increase Broads river tolls over the next 5 years by 6.5% over and above the rate of inflation and it was agreed that the additional income would be used to fund additional river maintenance. For the 2006 season, river tolls were increased by 13.6%. Despite the promises, meaningful dredging failed to materialize.
Continuous increases in rates of river tolls must eventually produce diminishing returns and it is acknowledged that river toll income can have little significance on the total cost of rectifying the historic lack of maintenance. Senior sources within the Broads Authority have advised that the Authority spends 60% of its navigation income on administration and overheads, and indicated that their target was to reduce this percentage to 50%. Effectively the Authority decided to pay themselves these river toll increases, rather than undertake the promised maintenance. The Authority failed to refute this figure at a recent public meeting. Their annual report indicates that prior to the additional DEFRA grant of £500,000 per annum over three years; river toll income amounted to over £1.8m for the year ended March 2006. Actual expenditure considered against this figure should have the amount of additional DEFRA funding removed for proper comparison. Oxfam claims to manage their worldwide affairs with only 10% administration costs to revenue.
The highest profile contender for wasting this DEFRA windfall is the Private Bill currently being promoted by the Broads Authority. At the heart of this Bill is a boat safety scheme which has been put at risk by inclusion of all manner of contentious additions and extra powers. The time and resources spent on this proposed Private Bill have been such that it seems unlikely the executive has satisfactorily addressed many other major problems for the last year. Delusions of renaming the Broads a National Park persisted six months after senior DEFRA civil servants had restated their 1983 position in a letter dated 28th May. This position was further reinforced by a letter from Natural England. We do not feel it is an acceptable part of the democratic process that these letters were apparently suppressed and not included with consultation documentation circulated by the Broads Authority. The DEFRA letter of 28th May was made public only as a result of enquiries made by Norman Lamb MP. It should also be recorded that relations between senior Broads Authority management and the navigation lobby has deteriorated to such a level of mistrust, that it is no longer obvious how good working relationships can be retrieved. On top of the additional DEFRA funding spent to date on promoting this Private Bill, the Broads Authority placed additional formal notices of Byelaw amendments to include a Boat safety scheme in the Eastern Daily Press on October 13th 2006.
Overall staff numbers employed by the Broads Authority have increased dramatically and out of all recognition from the tiny corps that managed the navigation on behalf of the Great Yarmouth Port & Haven Commissioners.
Offices in Grade II listed buildings in central Norwich where car parking costs £8 per day hardly gives an impression of value for the administrative pound – in fact an idle mind once calculated that the Broads Authority spends the equivalent of the entire River Cruiser Class river toll income (nearly four hundred yachts) on car parking. There are plans to increase the central overhead of the Broads Authority still further by creating a new Planning Department. The Authority wishes to remove responsibility from the surrounding districts for dealing with applications within the Broads Authority’s boundaries. It is understood that 300 planning applications per annum are anticipated.
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To view appended documents, please click the link provided within the text.
