Chancellor Alistair Darling is planning to sell off the M25 Dartford Crossing and the complete UK canal network (above) as part of a £16bn-plus privatisation programme reports the New Civil Engineer.
Speaking at the James Callaghan Memorial lecture Alistair Darling said:
“We need to look at what non-essential public sector assets we can sell, so that we can free up capital for key projects.”
Up for Sale
- British Waterways
- QE II Conference centre
- Ordnance Survey
- Land Registry
- Dartford Crossing
- Royal Mint
- Met Office
- Oil and Pipelines Agency
- Defence Storage and Distribution Agency
This sounds bad, in fact awful, but then we are 'old school' here at Floating in the City. We could easily end up with 'Virgin Waterways' (Sir Richard Branson owns a large barge moored at Little Venice, London). Perhaps this is the only way forward, but why are they saying British Waterways is a "non-essential" asset? Apart from not being true, this is just talking down it's value, so it will sell for even less. They even think the British Weather (the Met Office) is non-essential; we are obviously entering desperate times.
Can we sell Winter and keep Spring?
Can we sell Winter and keep Spring?
