British Waterways budget cut by £60m

Massive cuts to British Waterways’ (BW) budget over the next five years will see a major drop in maintenance work carried out by its Omnibus framework contractor Galliford Try.

BW’s annual budget was cut from £62.5m to £53.4m this year, resulting in a £5.5m cut to this year’s £30m maintenance programme.

The Department for Agriculture and Rural Affairs (Defra) has warned BW to expect another £60m of cuts over the next five years, which will be taken off its maintenance programme.

A BW spokesman said that the brunt of the maintenance cuts would fall on the Omnibus framework, which was awarded to Galliford Try and formerly Morrison Construction in 2002.

“Unfortunately, it will be the much bigger jobs that the framework covers that will be hit rather than the smaller works our in-house contractors do,” he said. “It is easier to cut 10 large projects than lots of little works and we need to save some significant chunks of money.”

BW chief engineer George Ballinger added: “The level of work will inevitably drop off, but hopefully there will still be a significant amount of money put through, although the obvious solution will be to make do and mend rather than renew.”

The framework, originally set at three years, was recently extended into its fifth year. It is now overseen by Galliford Try Infrastructure following Galliford Try’s acquisition of Morrison Construction Services in 2005.

A Galliford Try Infrastructure spokesman said: “Galliford Try is aware of the issues that British Waterways is facing. We will continue to work with our client to provide ongoing best value and help British Waterways to get as much as out of its budget as possible.”

BW warned that the cuts would also be detrimental to the regeneration of adjacent derelict areas. A spokesman said more innovative forms of funding needed to be found, such as forming alliances with regeneration developers.

[Contract Journal, 18 October 2006, p 3]