Abstract
Experience suggests that cross-sector partnerships can turn out to be a big disappointment: a cozy talking shop with plenty of warm words but not a lot of action to show for it. The Mersey Basin Campaign, however, was a major exception. As a government-sponsored 25-year initiative to clean up the rivers, canals, and estuary of the Mersey River Basin in North West England, the Campaign was a pioneer in public-private-voluntary partnership working and, in the period it was active (1985–2010), made great progress in improving water quality, promoting waterside regeneration, and engaging stakeholders, in a region with a history of severe industrial dereliction and pollution. In this paper, by a former leader of the Campaign, a number of themes are explored: Why was a Campaign needed? What did it try to achieve? How did it do this? What particularly factors led to successful partnership working?
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Notes
- 1.
The Royal Commission on the Prevention of Pollution of Rivers sat over the period 1864–1873, took evidence from industrialists located alongside the Mersey and the Irwell, and produced a series of reports and recommendations. See Elworthy and Holder (1997).
- 2.
- 3.
The River Ribble catchment was added to the Campaign area in the late 1990s at the request of the environmental regulator, the Environment Agency. The agency was keen to ensure that the improvements in water quality, starting to be felt in the Mersey catchment, were extended to the Ribble.
- 4.
At the time, there was no environmental program for water quality improvements: that would not come until water privatization in 1989 and the introduction of 5-year asset management plans (see Gregory 2012).
- 5.
The Healthy Waterways Trust continues to this day (http://www.healthywaterwaystrust.org.uk/), fulfilling some of the Campaign’s role in a more low key way. Since 2010 much of its activity has focused on mediation in relation to the maintenance of water quality standards in some of the most sensitive locations in the Mersey Basin, e.g., Salford Quays, a major site for waterside regeneration.
- 6.
See I. Gilfoyle (2000) “Memories of the Mersey Basin Campaign,” available at: http://www.merseybasin.org.uk/archive/assets/244/original/Memories_of_MBC_by_Ian_Gilfoyle.pdf
- 7.
The Campaign’s final Corporate Plan, for 2009–2010, is available at: http://www.merseybasin.org.uk/archive/assets/53/original/53_mbc_CORPORATE_PLAN_2009-10.pdf
- 8.
For detailed evidence of the impact of the Campaign, see: Handley et al. (1997), Jones (2000), (2006), and EKOS Consulting (2006). All of these documents may be found on the Mersey Basin Campaign Legacy Website: http://www.merseybasin.org.uk/
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Batey, P. (2017). How Can Cross-Sector Partnerships Be Made to Work Successfully? Lessons from the Mersey Basin Campaign (1985–2010). In: Shibusawa, H., Sakurai, K., Mizunoya, T., Uchida, S. (eds) Socioeconomic Environmental Policies and Evaluations in Regional Science. New Frontiers in Regional Science: Asian Perspectives, vol 24. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-0099-7_4
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