British Waterways will be turned into a charity. Photo: Ardent Photgraphy/Don Stewart CC-BY-ND-2.0

The organisation in control of more than 2,000 miles of canals and towpaths is to be turned into a ‘national trust’ for waterways.

The move is part of the coalition Government’s ‘bonfire of the quangos’ that will see many non-Government bodies abolished or merged.

British Waterways today welcomed the Cabinet Office announcement that a new charity would be formed to look after Britain’s canals – a move BW has been pushing for for the last 18 months.

If the proposal goes ahead as planned, the new charity will come into existence by April 2012.

There are more than 1,500 miles (2,414km) of towpaths available for walkers and cyclists alongside the country’s canals, and BW also offers guided walks in various locations. British Waterways also maintains moorland reservoirs in popular walking areas

British Waterways’ chairman Tony Hales said: “This is excellent news and something we have been urging all political parties to support since last year.

“The waterways have been utterly transformed for the better in the time since British Waterways was established in 1962 and are now used in ways in which their original builders could never have imagined. That transformation has owed much to the enthusiastic staff and stakeholders who love the waterways passionately.

“Moving the waterways from public ownership into a charitable body recognises the need to build on that enthusiasm and marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter in their 250-year history.”

Future funding will come from a combination of a guaranteed, long-term contract from Government; commercial income, such as receipts from a charity-locked property endowment, boat licences and utilities, and growing charitable income such as donations and legacies.

The Forestry Commission has also survived the Government’s axe, but will be reformed later this year. The Forestry Commission’s function in Wales may be transferred to the Welsh Assembly Government under a broad environmental body. Much of England and Wales’s wilder areas are under the control of the commission.

Natural England, set up by the last government as an advisory body on the natural environment, will also continue, but faces being reformed structurally and culturally to become ‘more efficient and customer focused’, according to the Government.

England’s nine national park authorities will also survive the cull, but the coalition Government says they will be subject to a review of their governance to increase accountability.

Britain’s national mapping agency, Ordnance Survey, due to move into new premises at Adanac Park, Southampton, soon, will survive intact. The organisation, which produces popular walking and cycling maps as well as the digital mapping for numerous navigation and route-planning systems, including grough’s online walk and cycle planning system grough route, is run as a trading fund, which uses revenue from sales and licensing to operate on a self-sufficient basis.

The British Mountaineering Council receives some funding from Sport England

Other outdoors bodies that have come under scrutiny by the Government include the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, which will remain; Visit Britain and Visit England, the tourism bodies that promote visitor spending, will also survive, though the Visit England board will see in increase in the representation of its constituent ‘destinations’.

Sport England, which provides some funding for the British Mountaineering Council, will be merged with UK Sport, as previously announced.

Cycling England will be abolished and its functions taken on by a Local Sustainable Travel Fund.

The country is also braced for the coalition Government’s comprehensive spending review, the results of which are due to be announced next week. Departments have been told to reduce their budgets by anything up to 40 per cent in a quest to reduce the Government’s fiscal deficit. However, though departmental cuts will be announced, it is likely to take longer before the details emerge of just how these will affect outdoors bodies.