But think of all the money that's been saved by not maintaining a flood defence system! As a result we are in a position to help all those people who have been flooded out! It's so simple, even a Government Quango could come up with it! On a serious note though - hands up everyone who would have voted in the Party with the manifesto of raising taxes to pay for flood defences (think back to that period of year-on-year hosepipe bans before you raise your hand).
Good point well made. But what happened to all the money saved from not maintaining the waterways? That's what I want to know.
Here is what the swivel eyed (TM Pete 1950) Douglas Carswell has to say about it Quango Britain is flooded by policy failure – Telegraph Blogs Here is the closing paragraph Some have suggested that Lord Smith should resign. Replacing leftie Labour placement with Tory placemen will not solve the problem. Passing responsibility back to local government, and making government agencies properly accountable to Parliament, just might. And he is right, again.
In conjunction with the EA, some of the blame has to be directed at farmers who have grubbed out miles of hedges and filled in miles of ditches.........the EA was supposed to have controlled that sort of thing, but actually all the EA did was to charge farmers and smallholders for maintaining rivers and ditches; without doing any work at all.
And when was the budget last balanced ? Tax cuts puts money back into the hands of hard working families to spend how they please, they earnt it after all :wink:
They tell me it's balanced, prudent and whatever after every Budget speech. Who am I to argue? :wink: These families ... they work hard and earn their money within the context of a society, is that right? A society where the health and well-being of every individual is paramount, right? I suppose these hard working families could opt-out of paying taxes and instead create their own -police force/healthcare/flood defences/transport infrastructure/armed forces/education system/disaster relief agencies/diplomatic corps/ ... sorry, I've been debating stuff with Libertarians for far too long now, I must quit that :biggrin:
I do not disagree with you Al, of course the best practice is to ensure the outfall is sufficient. The problem with the levels is that the outfalls are not sufficient, they are bottlenecked with bridges and culverts which back up the flow. If the rivers (including the outfalls) are dredged to improve the flow rate it will improve the situation in low flow events but in extreme events you will create a far more catastrophic outcome (think boscastle from a few years ago but with bridgewater). The other issue with the outfalls to the levels is tidal movement. The severn estuary has the 2nd highest tidal movement in the world, all of the outlets are tidal in nature (i.e. you can watch the water run upstream as the tide comes in). If the flow out is increased and it meets a high tide the water has nowhere to go but burst the rivers banks. You raised a very good point about ripping up hedges in another post, they breakup water flow and slow its entry into the watercourses allowing it to disperse in a controlled manner, it is this action which is required to reduce the flooding. of course the existing drainage needs to be maintained but dredging alone is not the solution in this situation.
Lots of people who know about water and stuff, telling you what they know (whilst being sympathetic) expert reaction to Somerset flooding | Science Media Centre
the real cause will be explained away as the "global weather crisis"………bit like the greedy bastid financial one comes under the "global financial crisis"….no ones fault…no winners no losers…..
Boscastle was a classic case of watercourses and ditches not being maintained and filled in.......because there was no capacity in them at the higher levels where it should have been controlled by meandering and changes of direction, all the water shot down the hills and roads on the surface to a pinch point at the town, namely the bridge where estuary mud and river silt (plus no doubt road edgings converging on the sides) had reduced the overall under bridge capacity. One of the other bad practices is that when farmers actually take it upon themselves to clear ditches and watercourses (despite the EA who instruct them not to do it), they generally use the spoil / silt to build up the edge of the banks, thus forming a mound which means surface water on the fields cannot drain into the rivers (they think it stops the river from breaking its banks)............they should spread it across the fields in an attempt to raise the overall field level over time.
Wasn't the practise of depositing river silt on the fields banned by the EU.It could only be deposited a certain distance from the river bank edge?
Did it f..k!! (I assume you were joking!) The condition of the roads in this country are dreadful and those in Somerset are very poor indeed. Once again, years of neglect, government funding cuts to county councils with budgets already stretched to breaking point all lead to cheap poor quality repairs that don't last! The road network is literally falling apart! Compare what we have to ride/drive on with other European roads.
IIRC yes.............but that's where this and previous weak and useless Govts should stand up to the EU..........after all, Holland does it.
* Two years ago we were suffering from a serious drought, and the authorities were being criticised for not spending enough money on reservoirs and repairing leaking water mains. * One year ago we had lots of snow and ice, and the authorities were being criticised for not spending enough money on snow-ploughs, stocks of grit, and de-icers for planes. * This year it is floods, and - guess what - the authorities are being criticised for not spending enough money on flood defences and dredging. Criticising the authorities is business as usual every year, so no surprises then. I have two questions though: A. Which should have the highest priority: reservoirs, snow ploughs, or dredging? B. What will next year's crisis be (which the authorities will be criticised for not spending enough money anticipating)? Any guesses?
