Floods and blame shifting

As someone (a local farmer) said to me to today, if only the EA had left it to the farmers on the levels to manage the land at their discretion the problem wouldn't be at the same magnitude as it now is, needing god knows how much money spent to redeem it. I can understand that management would have needed overseeing and work done in conjunction with the EA, but not to allow anyone to do anything year after year and the EA not doing it themselves beggars belief!! This of course is why we are where we are!

Just realised why you think future finance might not be the issue pogs - the thread is about who to blame. Silly me.

Not all lib dems "down there". Local conservative MP wants to push Smith's head down the toilet apparently.

That aside, it is NOT all down to a lack of funding, it is down to mis-management. I believe £30 million was found for flood defences and £300 million for the nature reserve I am sure someone will correct me if I am wrong.

The local EA workers have had their hands tied by crass decisions from above. They, the police, the marines and everyone else involved now deserve praise. But because of these idiotic decisions and refusal to listen to locals who knowthe area and how to manage it, it is a case of shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted.

And it is heartrending to see the local news, the woman and her horse, the tough farmers in tears, the police who had to gently persuade an old lady that she MUST leave her home.

Meanwhile, the top dogs go back to their cosy London flats, warm and dry.

Ps and IF PC can 'kick ass' then goodoh, someone needs to

Floods in Britanny as well, I wonder how Hollande is dealing with it

I thought it was refused £2 million for dredging but spent 21 million on a nature reserve, but the principle is the same whatever the facts.

I understand that Chris Smith did not tell any councillors, the Council, or the MP that he was at last making a trip to the Somerset Levels and refused to go near anywhere that was actually flooded!!!!!

He only does the job three days a week anyway. Which indicates how important the EA is to the government.

One of the problems here, where it is hilly, is that the farmers have got rid of hedges and trees and created large fields, so there is nothing to break the flow of debris and earth running off the fields and blocking the drainage ditches. There is a lot of grazing land round here and few fields laid to crops - grass is not good at keeping the land together in this sort of deluge.

The major cause of these problems in all areas is the lack of adequate maintenance activity due to poor funding. The drains and ditches will not function in this sort of weather unless there is a regular maintenance programme, and, when money is tight, this goes to the bottom of the priority list.

Our parish council funds a lengthsman who comes round to clear the ditches, but he is just one man fighting the elements over a large area. The rain pouring off the fields and bubbling out of the drains has virtually washed our lane away - it will cost so much more to reinstate it than it would have to have maintained the drainage system in the first place. But I am not holding my breath over getting the lane remade!

Oh dear, hope you can get out.

DH said years ago that this country was lacking 'planned maintenance'. Being an engineer, he is very keen on a planned and recorded system of maintenance to keep everything in good working order. In fact he left a job once because new people took over and said they weren't interested in planned maintenance and would just wait until it broke down to fix it.

Over many years the infrastructure of GB has broken down due to lack of maintenance and we are reaping the consequences.

Watch to see them all blame each other.

I think margaretm74 that Hollande will not be dealing with it at all. We have regional government for that sort of thing here and they are normally pretty efficient. Of course we don't have the mish-mash of public / private / quango that exists in the UK.

OK, probably a better system, especially since he is a very busy man.

I think the system has been in place for centuries.
French presidents are always very busy men.
Plus ça change etc

Our floods would be a lot worse if we did not have a team of people responsible for maintenance in the village. All this winter we have seen people out almost daily in yellow jackets, rodding culverts and cleaning out ditches. Our problems would be much worse without them.

On Sky news this morning the EA staff were being praised, apart from the higher echelons. One lady said that Lord Smith's greaest achievement was getting out of the Somerset Levels alive last week.

Maybe the 2 threads on the subject should be merged.

Here is a very interesting article I posted on the other thread:

Drowning in Money

http://www.monbiot.com/2014/01/13/drowning-in-money/

www.monbiot.com/2014/01/13/drowning-in-money

Blued for you, Granjura.
And it is all Paterson's fault, according to Monbiot, and the fault of the CAP.

Makes fascinating reading but now I am more confused than ever. Will this apparent total mismanagement ever be sorted out?

Depends on how much money the government is prepared to put back in, Liz. As I said earlier on here or another thread, my village has been given £1.2m for flood defences, for a village of 3750 inhabitants.
The amounts that the government say they are putting in sound a lot, but not really when put into perspective.
I remember when studying environmental science in the 70s that farmers were being given money to rip out hedges. Then it was being given money to put them back. Wherever the grants are, farmers will do what is asked. But it was the farmers that were planting trees at the source of the Trent in Monbiots article, because obviously they realised that their fields would suffer if they did not.
Is it a problem of who owns the farms? Many farmers work for others, not themselves any more.

It's still blame shifting. Pickles said that he would apologise unreservedly, but the government thought it was doing what the experts told it to do. Then he says that Lord Smith should resign.
Lord Smith was not an expert, he was just doing what the experts told him was right.
I would imagine that the government would not want a Tory at the head of the EA yet, not until the flooding has been sorted out.

So are their hands completely tied by Brussels and the CAP?

Presume so, unless they get out of the EU, so no CAP.
In the article it says that they do not get their farm subsidy if there are trees on the farm, called unwanted vegetation.
Anyone any info on how many MPs benefit from the CAP, and how many of their farms are flooded?

They have really stepped up the blame game today - accusations and counter accusations flying all over the place!

Durhamjen. It would be very interesting to know the answer to the question you asked in your last post.

Well Pickles is taking full advantage - Paterson on sick leave from urgent surgery. So Pickles acts like a real team player and starts criticising Paterson's department. So becoming.

Didn't Pickles also claim that Britain's foreign aid was helping to combat global warming, so the the risk of flooding in this country in future would be reduced...

Interesting article by a hydrologist

Do any of them really have a clue?