Maintenance

Conserving, restoring and developing an inland waterway network that stretches for over 2,200 miles (3,540 km) is certainly a challenge, particularly given its environmental and historical importance.

Innovative engineering lies at the heart of British W aterways' operations and it costs us over £70 million (03/04) in repairs and renovations each year. Some techniques have changed little in 200 years, including lock-gate manufacture, which we carry out at a number of workshops across the country.

Reducing the backlog of works

By the mid 1990s, years of underfunding had left the waterways with serious structural engineering problems. In recent years, by combining new commercial income with government grant, we have been able to make substantial inroads to eliminate all the statutory arrears of maintenance.

In March 2004 we made a momentous breakthrough when we completely eliminated our safety-related backlog of maintenance, eight months earlier than our published promise. In 1996/97 the cost of repairs was valued at around £100 millions.

We will now concentrate on completing our non safety-related backlog of statutory arrears, currently valued at almost £160 million, and aim to do this by 2012.