I must now confess to being an inveterate lurker on the uk.rec.waterways Google group. Discussions there about DEFRA's cuts to the budgets of British Waterways and the Environment Agency (which will affect the former much more harshly) have coalesced into a campaign, with a website bringing together a range of interested groups and individuals, and details of the background to the cuts (waterways paying for the incompetence of others) and their possible consequences (potentially dire). I (OK, Lockboy) have added the site to my links list.
One thing we are all urged to do is contact our MP, stressing the importance of the waterways not only to boaters (looks like special pleading) but to nature, conservation, recreation and, possibly most persuasively, regeneration. Despite living in a canal-free constituency, I will be writing to mine - laying into DEFRA is one of his many hobbies, so I'm sure he'll be up for it. If your MP is Labour, you probably have the chance to be even more effective, so do take it.
A lot of suggestions for a name for the campaign were thrown about before 'Save the Waterways' was settled upon. My favourite was the admittedly esoteric, but undeniably snappy, 'Cut Cut Cuts'.
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