The recent flooding.A point of view.

boatone said:
Noah got on with building a boat .......
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Surely nothing to do with an election on the horizon ?
The local MP has been pretty vocal about the problem for years.

"Ian Liddell-Grainger: I represent Sedgemore and the Levels. I do not know whether the Secretary of State is aware that the flood defence schemes there are being cut to a large extent and the money is being moved north. That perturbs us. The Environment Agency has a building in Bridgwater, but will be moving to Bristol, and we find that unacceptable. Will he explain what will be put in its place?"

http://www.theyworkforyou.com/search/?s=ian+liddell+grainger++flooding&o=r&p=3
 
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"A debate now starting also in the Lounge;)"
Interesting new use for the word "Debate" ?

Against all common sense.... actually went to look at the thread. :)
Usual diatribes from key board warriors unable to get anybody in the real world to take them seriously.
 
Tony I have to disagree on two counts;

1. I think the most important & significant change is Cameron saying the rivers will be dredged. Priorities will be changed. Money will be found. For a couple of weeks it will be important, and by then policies will be put in place, departments formed, heads appointed on big salaries, and dredging will happen. The EA will start saying dredging is an important part of their remit, and it always has been. I'm assuming the EA is similar to Local Government (where I've worked since the mid 70's) in outlook, where pronouncements by politicians result in 180 degree changes in policy without anybody ever blamed for following the previous discredited methods.

(you said "By far the most significant change in the last 24 hours is Cameron's intervention and the decision to deploy specialist army support and assistance to deal with the actual human problem that currently exists....". Already 24 hours later the army are saying there's nothing to do/)

2. You don't believe it (dredging) is the simple solution to a real problem - perhaps not the simple solution but it is a very important element neglected by the EA in recent years. Hopefully once done on the Somerset Levels we can see the results & know one way or the other.
 
It's always too much rain,not enough money....never mismanagement by the authorities

Medway not seen a dredger in 40yrs?
DEFRA,EA,NRA,government.......stupid incompetent fools.
 
Flynnbarr said:
It's always too much rain,not enough money....never mismanagement by the authorities

Medway not seen a dredger in 40yrs?
DEFRA,EA,NRA,government.......stupid incompetent fools.
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Nope Blame Joe Public.....the 99.9999% of the population who never go near water will never willingly take money away from blimming roads etc and spend it where only a bunch of rich boating owning toffs will notice the benefit by way of not bashing their props with they park the old boat out side Ye Resturant.
Those of us ancient enough to have seen regular flood events over last 50 years will be aware that even when very aggresive deep dredging was a regular thing to allow commercial barges to reach long ago abandoned wharfs.
The rivers and surrounding areas still flooded.
Dredging probably made precious little difference then and why will it be different now ?
Thinner rain perhaps.:)
It needs a longer term overall plan which is going to cost money,once this minor fuss has been done to death by the press,suspect we will be forgotten again.
 
oldgit said:
Nope Blame Joe Public.....the 99.9999% of the population who never go near water will never willingly take money away from blimming roads etc and spend it where only a bunch of rich boating owning toffs will notice the benefit by way of not bashing their props with they park the old boat out side Ye Resturant.
Those of us ancient enough to have seen regular flood events over last 50 years will be aware that even when very aggresive deep dredging was a regular thing to allow commercial barges to reach long ago abandoned wharfs.
The rivers and surrounding areas still flooded.
Dredging probably made precious little difference then and why will it be different now ?
Thinner rain perhaps.:)
It needs a longer term overall plan which is going to cost money,once this minor fuss has been done to death by the press,suspect we will be forgotten again.
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I give up
So dredging won't be one part of the longer term plan then?
My mistake,I thought management managed and planners planned.
Don't worry it will be hosepipe ban time soon:)
 
Flynnbarr said:
I give up
So dredging won't be one part of the longer term plan then?
My mistake,I thought management managed and planners planned.
Don't worry it will be hosepipe ban time soon:)
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Dredging is fine by me just do not expect it to prevent flooding when we get the extremes of weather experienced over last few months and taking a stick to the EA is not going to solve anything without vast extra funding from the tax payer. ?
......and if they ARE going to spend the cost of a dozen hospitals they can ring me up and will give a non partisan and totally unbiased opinion as where to spend the first 20 or 30 million.
The Thames and Zummerset levels should not hold their breath. :)
 
oldgit said:
Dredging is fine by me just do not expect it to prevent flooding when we get the extremes of weather experienced over last few months and taking a stick to the EA is not going to solve anything without vast extra funding from the tax payer. ?
......and if they ARE going to spend the cost of a dozen hospitals they can ring me up and will give a non partisan and totally unbiased opinion as where to spend the first 20 or 30 million.
The Thames and Zummerset levels should not hold their breath. :)
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Get back to the 'the lounge':):):)
 
oldgit said:
Nope Blame Joe Public.....the 99.9999% of the population who never go near water will never willingly take money away from blimming roads etc and spend it where only a bunch of rich boating owning toffs will notice the benefit by way of not bashing their props with they park the old boat out side Ye Resturant.
Those of us ancient enough to have seen regular flood events over last 50 years will be aware that even when very aggresive deep dredging was a regular thing to allow commercial barges to reach long ago abandoned wharfs.
The rivers and surrounding areas still flooded.
Dredging probably made precious little difference then and why will it be different now ?
Thinner rain perhaps.:)
It needs a longer term overall plan which is going to cost money,once this minor fuss has been done to death by the press,suspect we will be forgotten again.
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EA longer term plan (LTFRS) bypass channels instead of regular capitol dredging.

Why is this needed? Well according to EA executive summary;


"The Lower Thames Strategy covers one of the largest and most at risk developed but undefended flood plains in England, with 21,000 properties and 50,000 people currently at a 0.5% annual exceedance probability (AEP) flood risk or higher. The consequences of flooding in the area would be severe, with floods lasting up to two weeks. Major flooding would affect critical national infrastructure, by causing severe disruption and likely traffic grid-lock to the M25, M4 and M3 motorways along with over 200km of the local and regional road network, suspension of several major drinking water abstractions supplying London and threaten up to 20 local electricity sub-stations. It is predicted that climate change impacts will double flood damages in a 0.5% AEP flood event from the current level of £850million to some £2billion by 2055, with the number of properties at flood risk reaching 35,000."

20 years to complete so probably a good idea to get it started.
 
oldgit said:
... taking a stick to the EA is not going to solve anything without vast extra funding from the tax payer. ?
......
The Thames and Zummerset levels should not hold their breath. :)
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It’s been given little or no news coverage, but the coastal defences were seriously damaged in multiple places in the December surge. Another high tide on Sunday is giving some cause for concern.
Breaches were made damaging port facilities and some put at risk national infrastructure.
Underground Liquefied Natural Gas storage was flooded necessitating round the clock emergency works to prevent their loss.
Flood defences in Holland are built to withstand a 1 in 20,000 year event.
Here we protect coasts to 1 in 200 year event standard whilst inland new build gets 1 in 100 year.
It’s an accident waiting to happen.
 
I am not a 'rich boat owning toff',in fact if I didn't give a toss about the way my country has been run I'd say never mind,haha,I live on high ground and I can take the boat down to the seaside if things get worse.
We are a 'short termist' nation.
Old git,the way we are run your new hospitals will probably be built on a flood plain
Infastructure of all sorts costs big money,and if the politicians are happy for the population to hit 70m then they had better start planning and managing better.
I think it's a slightly bigger picture than just the thames flooding
Bugger,I'm turning into a moany old git:(
 
Just been listening to a debate on this matter on radio R4.The young lady from the EA was attempting to put a very measured view of the difficulties of managing the entire watercourse and the problem that they have to balance the interests of one section of the community against another.
Her opponent from the NFU and possibly trained at the Sadam Hussain school of charm, was spouting the simplistic sort of stuff more usually found in the sort of newspapers that people who like lots of pictures and no big words read.
He did the farmers no favours at all.
 
oldgit said:
Just been listening to a debate on this matter on radio R4.The young lady from the EA was attempting to put a very measured view of the difficulties of managing the entire watercourse and the problem that they have to balance the interests of one section of the community against another.
Her opponent from the NFU and possibly trained at the Sadam Hussain school of charm, was spouting the simplistic sort of stuff more usually found in the sort of newspapers that people who like lots of pictures and no big words read.
He did the farmers no favours at all.
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I listened to this interview on Saturday's Today program R4 and found it a useful addition to the debated on both sides. The difficulty in answering the question "if money was no object would you dredge more? produced some interestingly evasive answers, as the question was not asked "would dredging make difference" I assume that, as the EA manager did not question the benefit, she believes it would have helped.

judge for yourself, http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b03sr0wh/Today_01_02_2014/ start of interview about 1.30.00
 
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