§ Mr. Spearingasked the Secretary of State for the Environment if he will take steps to include mileage of waterways used for commercial navigation not under control of the British Waterways Board in compilation of official statistics of inland navigation in the United Kingdom.
§ Mr. Eldon GriffithsNo.
§ Mr. Spearingasked the Secretary of State for the Environment, (1) using the criteria adopted by the EEC, what is the total length of commercial waterways in the United Kingdom, and what was the approximate tons/miles of freight that they carried in 1972;
(2) if he will state the criteria used by the EEC in determining inland commercial navigation; using those criteria, which waterways, other than those under the control of the British Waterways Board, would come within those criteria; and if he will state the length of each respective waterway.
§ Mr. Eldon GriffithsEEC Regulation 1108/70, which requires returns to be made of expenditure on and use of transport infrastructures, applied to inland waterways other than those of a maritime nature and those limited to vessels of less than 250 metric tons deadweight. In the United Kingdom there are 157 miles of such waterways on which about 3.9 million tons of freight were carried in 83W 1972. These are all BWB waterways except for a 32-mile length of the Yorkshire Ouse controlled by the Trustees of the Ouse Navigation.