England, no way sorry

I was thinking about that this afternoon, suedonim. HS2 was set to run adjacent to where we are living now, with the loss of a large hotel, two farms, the best part of two villages, a section of the Transpennine Trail, and even a bit of a famous stately home. The “consultation” was a farce. Fortunately they changed their minds about the route, but now some other poor folks stand to lose homes they and their families have lived in for generations. It reminds me of the Vogons and their hyperspace expressway in HGTTG! Unstoppable!

is there anything else we can pillage?
Welsh male voice choirs?
Rob Brydon - to cheer everyone up?

Hands off Rob Brydon please and don’t even think of pinching Rob Gilbert ?

Well we’re fighting to try and stop a huge housing development in the middle of our village in Norfolk. More houses than we have on the village already.
They will be bought mostly by second homers who will add nothing to our community.
I’d rather have a reservoir.

I can see how you feel annie, these things are very complex. I think there are just so many people! Perhaps anyone over 65 should be put on a carousel and whizzed away into space!! Wasn't there a film like that year's ago?! ?

Not me niggly, don’t like going up to third story of a building. ?

In truth I feel guilty , I donate to water aid then kick off because London needs water. That union chap shouldn’t have been so arrogant . Water is God’s gift

Grafham Water, just outside Huntingdon is half enclosed by a “wall” because of the slope of the land. The wall is not actually a wall but a high grass bank, sheer on th water side but gradually sloping on the road view side, complete with cycle track, trees, wild flowers and grazing sheep. Very attractive actually in a flat landscape.

Hands off Rob Brydon please and don’t even think of pinching Rob Gilbert

Rod Gilbert is very funny but he shouts
I think Rob Brydon has defected to England now, but I'll let you share him.

Water, or lack of it, is going to be of the most serious problems we are all going to face.
Weren't there plans to build a new reservoir at Abingdon by Thames Water? Is this the one posters refer to that would have a wall built around it?
Surely there is another site somewhere in the south-east that would be suitable - although I suppose it would take 10 years for a feasibility study, then another 10 years whilst court cases were heard, then another 20 years to build the reservoir.....

The reservoirs around Heathrow are bordered by high grassy banks which are the ‘walls’ of the reservoir. Sheep happily graze on them.

Ah yes - so they do. I used to pass one of them near Staines quite regularly.

The reservoirs in the Elan Valley, which supply Birmingham, were paid for by Birmingham ratepayers, including my grandparents. The Welsh would have no stocks of water to give or sell if it weren't for the Brummies' foresight and investment. I felt very aggrieved when a former Tory government sold off property which wasn't theirs to sell and called it privatisation.

Well the Brummies should have built the reservoirs in England shouldn’t they not flood Welsh homes . In the 19th Century Wales was completely under English rule.

It's the twenty-first century now. Time to put aside tribal resentments.

The Welsh would have no stocks of water to give or sell if it weren't for the Brummies' foresight and investment.
Do the Welsh sell the water to Birmingham then? ~Do they make a profit from it?

Actually, I think it was Tony Blair's Government which privatised water - I voted for them believing that they would stop this.
Unfortunately
Both Peter Mandelson and his successor at the department of trade and industry believed it was the role of government to foster entrepreneurial culture.

The second and third New Labour administrations pressed aggressively for further state down-sizing and privatisation.

Nothing tribal Baggs, the Welsh are a race not a tribe

Racism is a form of tribalism.

Are Welsh people really a separate race from other Brits? My Welsh husband isn't.

I think it would be more accurate to say that the Wales is nation whose inhabitants belong, for the most part, to the same race as most other inhabitants of the British Isles.

Good luck with your fight Pamela. There’s been continuous development after development in our town in north of Norfolk and we thought we’d found the answer to stopping any more when we heard the sewers can’t cope with any more building. The we heard that the last development in Dereham is still having their waste taken out daily by lorries!!

I think water in the wetter parts of the British Isles should be shared with people who live in the drier parts. Flooding a valley in which some people live is not ideal but if the water such a flooding collects helps tens of thousands of other people under the same government I don't think that government has done something intrinsically immoral.

I think if the national or race side of the issue in question were taken out of the equation, most people would agree in principle that something done for the greater good is worth doing. Of course those immediately affected should be properly compensated.

nfk, maybe Norfolk needs to start investing in composting toilets.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4182845/Genes-show-Welsh-are-the-true-Britons.html
The Welsh are the true Britons, the rest of us are just mongrels.

I'm quite fond of mongrels! They are hardy and tenacious. ?

Re removing the race/nationality perspective: there doesn't seem to be resentment about the flooded valley reservoirs providing water to Manchester from the Pennines. People lived in those valleys too. People still do, only higher up than they used to.

Re mongrolity (!), there's hybrid vigour to consider as well.

Mongrelisation that should be. Brain not in gear.