IWA view from the acting Chief Exec

IWA What’s its restoration role?

Our ex-WRG-acting-Chairman and now acting-IWA-Chief Exec fills us in on what the Inland Waterways Association does for restoration and more...

Hello from the CEO

It seems I am always writing in Navvies in an interim role. Having just handed the reins of WRG back to Mike Palmer now that he is recovered, I find myself as Chief Executive of WRG’s parent body the Inland Waterways Association, again on an interim basis!

Some readers of Navvies will have seen the IWA communications in IWA Bulletin or Officers’ Briefing or, but for those who may not receive them I was asked by Trustees to take on the role of Chief Executive Officer on a interim basis following the resignation of the previous CEO. After over 30 years’ involvement with the waterways, WRG and IWA, some people might say I’m living the dream!

Some Navvies readers might wonder what exactly IWA does either for WRG or for the waterways in general. The simple answer is that we do what nobody else does – IWA is the only independent national charity campaigning for Britain’s canals and rivers.

In practical terms this means that IWA funds all of the activities of WRG (that we all know and love), but it does so much more. IWA took on the bankrupt (but navigable) Chelmer & Blackwater Navigation over 15 years ago, saved it from closing down, and has restored it to a well maintained, thriving and selffunding waterway. Through the Restoration Hub (the collective name for all the aspects that make up IWA’s waterway restoration function) we support all the local canal and river restoration trusts and societies with practical and technical advice. The Practical Restoration Handbook is the ‘go-to document’ for many groups. We also have volunteer experts who give their time freely and willingly to support restoration – in engineering, planning, health & safety etc. IWA also arranges insurance for the majority of the restoration sector, getting lower premiums than would be available for individual groups.

So in the restoration field IWA is a key enabler, but IWA is wider than that. It also has volunteer experts across the waterways spectrum – heritage, inland freight, biodiversity, green boating and many other topics.

IWA also has the ability to campaign nationally – we are the administrative support for the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Waterways which means MPs and Peers attending meetings on various waterways issues.

In other communications I said I was honoured to be asked to be CEO, and I really mean that. When you look at what the IWA has achieved, at what we continue to achieve, and what still needs to be done then there is no doubt that IWA and WRG will be sorely needed for many years to come. Jonathan Smith Martin Ludgate

Saved by IWA: the Chelmer & Blackwater at Heybridge Basin page 11