12 minute read
Twenty Years at the Top
As he prepares to step down from his role as IWA’s Chief Executive this summer, we talk to Neil Edwards about Canal Camps, career highlights and stand-out campaigns
How did your involvement with the waterways begin?
It was initially with the Waterway Recovery Group in 1979. I was always conscious that waterways restoration was happening and when I made a determined effort to find out more, I contacted London WRG, went to a few work parties and eventually became one of its regular volunteers.
You were known within WRG as being 'captain Canal Camps'. Tell us how that came about.
There was an article in Navvies magazine in the mid-1980s appealing for someone to take on the management of WRG’s Work Camps, as they were then known. The camps generally operated over the summer holidays at just two or three sites for around a month with people coming and going at various times. They were on the periphery of WRG in some ways. The organiser at the time wanted to step down and there was some debate within WRG as to whether or not the camps were going to continue. Because I’d had lots of experience with the National Trust’s working holidays since leaving school, I thought I could make a useful contribution. I put my name forward and the leader at London WRG acted as my advocate. From that point on, I took on the organisation of the camps and then restructured them into week-long residential activities. I also renamed them Canal Camps and marketed them to a younger audience to get new people involved.
How have the Canal Camps changed since you first made the changes?
It took a while to get them going and I think we only ran four week-long camps in the first year. Gradually, we expanded the programme and built them up until we had around 25 a year, which took about ten or more years to do. We used the camps to get new people to stick around with WRG and join the weekend groups. We increased the number of the places that we could go to and approached local restoration societies asking them to consider hosting camps.
When I took on the role, there was just one very old, dilapidated van that was barely roadworthy, and a limited amount of kit that went everywhere. Over the years we invested in modern vehicles that were reliable, as well as trailers and new equipment. We tried to make it more professional, and raise the standards in regards to health and safety and the range of activities that could happen. We also added the training aspect to improve the overall effectiveness of the camps. Initially the emphasis was on trying to get more people involved, but as time went on it shifted towards trying to make the camps really productive and worthwhile.
That's quite an undertaking. Was it one of the highlights of your time with WRG?
Yes. There was a risk at the time that the Canal Camps could have faded away. I thought they had a lot of potential and knew from my work with the National Trust that it was a real means of bring in new people and engaging a whole new audience. The Canal Camps have become a major feature of WRG and one of the jewels in the overall IWA crown. It’s something I’m pleased that’s worked out really well, and was well worth the effort. Looking back, I suppose it was a fairly sizeable undertaking but it never seemed so at the time because it started small and built up slowly.
WRG has also grown up in terms of becoming more professional and having greater expertise and influence on the restoration world. It has opened itself up to so many worksites, and is willing to help new schemes and be quite adventurous. Everyone’s been
Neil was involved in several different committees before taking on the role of Chief Executive.
Neil played a huge role in turning WRG’s Canal Camps into what they are today.
given an opportunity and WRG has not been too sniffy about going to different places – it’s tried to be fair to all and help every restoration scheme that’s going. I think WRG has done a lot of good around the system.
How did your career at IWA begin?
In 1989 I decided I’d stand as a Trustee for IWA, and at that time my key interest was very much WRG. Then in 1995 I saw the advertisement for the post of office manager at IWA, so I had to resign from my voluntary positions. Prior to that I’d been working in the City of London for a bank but having decided that I wanted a change of career, the idea of working for the waterways seemed attractive. Shortly after I became a full-time employee with the Association, I took on the role of Executive Director, which is essentially what I’ve been doing since.
IWA is a wide-reaching and complex organisation. How did you gain the experience required to take on such a high-level role?
I was a volunteer on various committees for about six years before I became an employee. In the early 1990s I joined the Environment Committee, which was brought about because of a dispute on the Yorkshire Derwent – the Yorkshire Wildlife Trust had been very much opposed to restoring navigation. We noticed there was a bit of a schism between waterways restoration and wildlife and conservation interests. Other restoration schemes realised that there was a disaster waiting to happen on their patch too. We needed to find a way to work together with wildlife organisations because our objectives were really very similar.
I was soon also involved in the Restoration Committee, which aimed to give more support other than the physical and practical activities provided by WRG, and I became chair of that for a while. I attended other meetings on subjects such as finance and campaigns, and was the Deputy National Chairman of the Association for a few months as well.
This was all essential grounding for the Chief Executive role. The Association was, and still is in many ways, quite a complicated beast. It has a lot of different committees and when I joined there were many separate activities going on in parallel. To come in as a senior employee at the Association, I needed to know about all the things that were going on around the system and understand how the waterways worked. It helped that I’d built up a lot of contacts within the restoration groups through WRG as well.
There have been dozens of IWA-led campaigns over the years. Which ones stand out for you?
One of the things I was particularly involved with was the very first clean-up campaign. We tried to engage every restoration group around the country, every IWA branch and all sorts of other organisations in a big waterways clean-up over just one weekend in the spring. We did this for years, but when we first started it in the early 1990s, it was a really big campaign. We got more than 100 different groups involved, and received support from local politicians.
The Save our System campaign started when funding for the waterways was looking particularly dicey and there was an increasing number of lengthy stoppages on the waterways. British Waterways and the Environment Agency were seriously underfunded and it was felt necessary to lobby government quite strongly on this. The campaign was partly inspired by people outside of IWA to begin with, but we quickly realised we needed to be active in this area and soon took the lead. There were protests held at various places around the country, and we organised a flotilla to cruise past the Houses of Parliament, which received good press coverage. It all helped and money was made available to BW to clear some of the problems we were concerned about. The campaign may have been part of the inspiration for forming Canal & River Trust.
How important was the creation of CRT to IWA?
Ever since the days of Robert Aickman, IWA had been keen on getting the nation’s waterways outside of direct government control and effectively into the third sector. When it became apparent that there might be some sort of audience for this within Government, IWA was very quick to move that forward. I think it’s fair to say that virtually every officer, at every opportunity engaged with Government at every level to push the idea.
I’d say that the conversion of BW to CRT is where IWA has had the biggest influence. The transformation of BW as a run-down, nationalised industry that was just trying to minimise expenditure, into CRT as a forward-thinking and engaging organisation, is, I think, the real achievement over the years. Since CRT has been set up, we’ve been pushing for changes to EA on a similar footing. Although that’s yet to happen, it’s not for want of trying.
Although there’s a long way to go until everything on the waterways is perfect, we’re certainly looking forward much more positively than our predecessors could ever have imagined.
The Save Our System campaign cruise past the Houses of Parliament.
Saving the Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation was a personal, as well as a professional, achievement for Neil.
What is IWA's role in relation to CRT today?
In a way, IWA has been so successful that you could argue it’s started to do itself out of a job. But we’re not there yet. We still have, as I mentioned, EA waterways and other navigations with a precarious future to consider. Of course, there is a whole series of waterways under restoration that need an enormous amount of support and encouragement, and new parts of the system, like the Bedford-toMilton Keynes Waterway. Our chief roles are making the existing network even more sustainable, and reviving waterways that failed before we could save them.
There is so much that the waterways have to contribute and that has been evident in CRT’s shi towards engaging with people’s well-being. The fact that the waterways have been so suddenly ‘found’ by the TV companies is great for ge ing the population at large to appreciate them too. Looking back 30 or 40 years, there were still huge numbers of people who wanted to fi ll them in, so there’s been a substantial change around in public opinion. But we’re not entirely there yet as not every waterway is working to its full extent and not every restoration has been completed. There are a lot of challenges ahead, and part of IWA’s role is to contribute towards the galvanising of opinion, and assist on every waterway in the country – not just those in CRT’s core network.
There are occasions when things go wrong and IWA can step in and do things that nobody else can. A very good example is the Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation and Essex Waterways. Unless IWA had been so bold, we’d have lost a very charming waterway. In a way, one of the things I’m proudest of doing within the Association is persuading Trustees at the time that we should take on the navigation. For me it was personal because I was brought up within a short distance of the waterway and had very close relatives who lived within a mile of it for almost 100 years. It was my local Navigation in every way. The success of Essex Waterways has been thanks to the team of local, dedicated volunteers led by Roy Chandler.
Are there any aspects of IWA that you're continuing to be involved with after your retirement?
I have agreed to stay on as a director of the board of Essex Waterways Ltd in a voluntary capaci , and I will always retain an interest and try to support waterways restoration.
I’ve also agreed to continue to oversee IWA’s insurance activities. For many years we’ve been looking a er the insurance arrangements of the majori of waterway groups around the country, including restoration trusts, boat clubs and communi boat groups. It was started by Ted Hill, an insurance broker and one of the Association’s Trustees, who fi rst set up the insurance arrangements for IWA in the 1970s. Soon a er, it became evident that a number of restoration groups required insurance, and so they were arranged for them too. About 15 years ago, the Financial Conduct Authori started to regulate insurance activities, and that’s when I took it on. Since then, we’ve grown the number of organisations that we support and have expanded the range of insurance products that are available to them. Although we have insurance brokers looking a er the day-to-day arrangements, I’m there to sort out any problems, assist with claims and to try to ensure that it all runs smoothly.
Neil (l) at the AGM in 2005.
What does regeneration of the waterways mean to you personally and in the context of IWA's 75th and WRG's 50th anniversaries?
The impact that the waterways have had on the lives of the nation is enormous. In IWA’s early years, canals were seen as liabilities that had to be closed down and disposed of in the most economical fashion but they are now more appreciated and in demand than ever before. I think the waterways are one of the country’s big success stories, so we’ve got to ensure they have a long-term, sustainable future, which is dependent on public support and appreciation. In that way, IWA has been a really successful chari and the aim should be to completely do itself out of business. But there’s a long way to go yet – there’s a lot more that’s not right and can be improved, which I’ll be keen to continue to support.
Finally, what would you like to say to IWA's members and supporters?
Quite simply: we can’t do it without you. IWA members are what makes the Association tick. Absolutely everything that I’ve mentioned has been u erly and entirely dependent on the goodwill and support of our members, volunteers and others in the waterways sector, whether they’re WRG volunteers, people who pay their subscriptions or commi ee members. They’re the people who make it happen, and long may they continue.
