I've just read this interesting blog about maize-growing in the Somerset Levels and associated problems.
Levels and Moorland have been getting publicity because it has been flooded there for weeks and it is only recently that they have had help More populated areas in the Thames Valley have received help quickly jn comparjson. I put a post on another thread about one area shoutjng about anither and quite honestly it does not help, we need a jnited effort to get out of this mess and plan for the future. Excuse typos.
Having a go at farmers again, JessM? 
Smith is only doing what his masters in DEFRA and the Treasury. Sad fact is that flood defence work has to be prioritised and there are only a few dozen houses affected in the Somerset levels and they are getting all the publicity. One commentator's take on this is that a small group of farmers in that area stand to gain a great deal in terms of their land values if there was a lot of investment.
Yes I know exactly what "flick" is saying what I am saying in a nutshell is stop blaming it doesn't help the situation when a team's chairman and management is being slatted. It undermines morale.
whitewave, I don't understand your tirade either. FlicketyB states quite clearly in her OP that she thinks the EA workers have done their best - it's Smith who's incurred her wrath!
You have not read my comment on another thread. I have a declared interest in that my son is a Flood Management Officer for the EA. You are speaking in newspaper headlines and not with seemingly any real knowledge. Ask an EA bod about their management and they will have nothing but praise for their teams and management. Of course there is the usual office politics but morale is (or at least was) extremely high, with a large amount of pride in work done and planned. Unfortunately this week some energy has been taken up ensuring that this high morale continues. The EA has a workforce that is highly educated (in my sons office most have PHD's) and a deep commitment to the environment.
Ask any EA employee and they will tell you that what constrains them is government budget and guidelines. NOT management or chairman
Sorry.I am not saying that Smith is indispensable, nor am I dismissing the work the EA does. I have reread my original posting and do not understand why you read it the way you did.
The policy of the EA and its management decisions are made at a high level. The decisions reached in relation to the Somerset levels have been perverse. Its staff on the ground have been superb. I believe one MP referred to the staff of the EA as lions led by donkeys.
As I said this thread is about Chris Smith who has led the EA badly and when the problems started instead of being proactive going out to meet and talk to both staff and those affected by the flooding has just hunkered down behind his desk and blamed everybody but himself. He has even been unwilling to visit flooded areas to support his staff and talk to those affected by the floods
The EA is a very important agency, it does many good things. It deserves better management. The current chairman brings the agency into disrepute.
You are SO wrong - Smith is not indispensable, but the work that the EA is doing is. Forget all this silly playground bullying and name calling and raise your eyes and game
This is not another thread on floods but a thread on a total incompetent in charge of a key government agency, who when an emergency came and found his agency wanting not only lacked the guts to really get down to visiting on site those suffering from his agencies poor decisions but cannot even be bothered to visit other parts of Britain where flooding is extensive and EA staff are working their socks off. Most of all by clinging on to a job that he has manifestly shown he is incapable of doing and which he has not even bothered to try to do since the disaster struck, he has just emphasised that there is no level to how low he is willing to fall to cling on to the money he receives but does not earn.
The EA, actively under Lady Young and inactively under Smith have placed wildlife well ahead of protecting homes and industry (and lets remember farming is an industry and has a much right to protection as any other).
All he has done since the floods struck is bring out a series of responses aimed at keeping his nose clean. First he was outraged that all those hardworking EA staff were being criticised when they were working so hard. They weren't being criticised, everybody has gone out of the way to speak highly of staff on the ground and make clear it is he and his top managers who have been woefully inadequate.
Then he made one half-hearted, furtive visit to see the floods in Somerset, then fled back to his office and hasn't found any need to make any further visits his own staff working so hard in flooded areas elsewhere.
Today he was back to suggesting in a memo to staff that they are being criticised unduly, when to repeat they are not being criticised, he is
His final insult is to blame those living on the flood plain for buying houses there. Well when we bought our house 20 years ago there were no nice convenient web sites showing flood maps and it never occurred to us. The village we were moving to had no history of flooding or near floods - and I have known it for most of my life and remained that way until 2007, and 2014.
He is also a man so grand and so rich that he has never struggled at the bottom of the housing ladder desperately trying to raise enough money to buy one of the houses in the lowest price band. In many places this means buying a little Victorian two up two down, which were often built on the flood plain. That applies to York, Oxford, Reading and many other places. My DS's first house was such a property. In his case it was protected by flood defences built 50 years previously, but even they nearly failed in 2000.
Rant over. I feel so much better.
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