This has got to be one of the stupidest headlines ever!

I live about ten miles away from Morpeth (it's actually the County Town of Northumberland). They have had flooding there for years, but it is worse than it used to be. It sits on the River Wansbeck - runs straight through the middle of the town.

I do think that there is too much building on flood plains. I did hear of one major supermarket chain in, I think, Gloucestershire, where they appealed against being turned down to build a store on what they were told was a flood plain. They won, the store was built and, guess what? It flooded. And what did the supermarket chain do then - why they wanted compensation because they had been allowed to build there!

The small town where I live has been flooded twice in recent years - after the first time new flood barriers and defences were built. Unfortunately the barriers made the allotments near the river more susceptible to water lying - I heard that quietly some bricks were removed to aid drainage. And you can see what happened then: next really bad weather the area flooded again because the river "escaped".

The thing is, if a headline is that stupid, it puts one off reading the article. They must know that. Definitely low class, stupid, lazy journalism, presuming writing headlines is part of the job. And why, for goodness' sake? What's the point they're trying to make with such a headline? When there's something that bad in what is supposed to be an intelligent newspaper, I think that's far worse than the tabloids which don't have the Indy's pretensions.

Only my opinion of course, but I doubt if I'm alone in thinking it.

Agreed about the article, but it was the headline I objected to. It is very, very stupid, which I don't expect of the Indy.

Cuts in public spending on things like drains, increased number of hard surfaces in urban environments (tarmacing front garden) - these are some of the other issues that contribute to flooding risk.
I don't think Inde is sinking to the level of the tabloids. I think the tabloids are a lot worse, as I posted above.
There is nothing unreasonable about the article itself.

I know the sick could have happened anywhere!

Yes I have been to Scotland.

I remember the midges round the Kyle of Lochalsh area. (Although Skye was beautiful, even in the mist)

On another occasion DH was sicked on by a small girl on her father's shoulders in Oban. Weather was nice that time though.

J04, have you ever been to Scotland? Parts of it have had a far better summer than we who live in the south have had this year.

(Ducks)

You expect damp and cold in Scotland.

It's not rare round here. Definitely don't clean out the ditches enough.

Can't say it's the finance thing. It's been like it for years.

Yes, being on a slope does bring its own risks of flooding, especially in a wet climate such as western Scotland has, but good building and drainage design make a big difference to how well water is coped with. lily, my house is surrounded by boggy ground a great deal of the time (most of the time actually). We always have various fungi and moss growing in the lawn. Roads flood, drives and farm tracks get washed downhill, and trees fall in the nearby vicinity every year, and always have. People round here just get on with it.

Oh, and houses don't flood unless there is a stream culvert blockage or something unusual like that. Nothing to do with climate, just bad maintenance. Even that is surprisingly rare.

Oh well, jess, if the Indy wants to stoop to the same level as the tabloids!

jings Morpeth is in Northumberland, a bit north of Newcastle.

This is probably a London-centric viewpoint. Huge numbers of large houses have been divided into flats, each one with a bathroom, kitchen, washing machine, dishwasher and so on. London's sewers were never designed to cope with this and are also very old. In addition, street drains don't seem to be cleaned and unblocked very often. Consequently when it rains very heavily, the water doesn't run away fast enough and basement and ground floor flats are quite often flooded.

I haven't read the article but I don't suppose climate experts really said any such thing. If they did, they are probably not experts.

I think lilygran this highlights the fact that although the headline is a little alarmist, living on a hill, unless right on the summit, brings its own flooding risks and that the environment agency are not talking rubbish. Nothing wrong with the article itself.
There are many stupider headlines in tabloids on a daily basis.

I've always thought we were flood-proof being half way up a very steep hill about 2 miles from the river valley. But the street drains and gulleys are cleaned out about once a year and the heavy rain we've had over the last few weeks have caused me some concern. What came down the hill this week looked like a river. We have toadstools and moss where we used to have a lawn. When the ground round here becomes a real bog, which won't be long if this kind of weather goes on, I can't see where the water is going to go. Roads in this area were washed away last year and this year, walls were undermined and trees fell. Makes me wonder........

Jing. Do you mean Ankh Morpeth?

They should stop building n flood plains.

I doubt if sea levels will ever reach East Cheshire! I have a brook running along the end of the garden, but there is a considerable slope between the house and the brook. Even the shed, which is only a few feet from it, has never been flooded in the twelve years I've been here.
Two of my grandsons managed to flood the bathroom and bring down the hall ceiling when they decided it was a good idea to play in the bath one afternoon. But I don't think the scientists making these predictions had met those two little horrors.

That does happen round here. (South)

Perhaps he didn't mean Scotland. Seems to stop at Newcastle. (Where's Morpeth? )

It's the drainage and sewer systems that could be overwhelmed by torrential rain

If you leave your bath running your house could flood. [ironic] emoticon

Funny, we didn't notice that drought oop north either.

There was one helluva drought last Winter. (I think that's why we got all the rain during the summer. [unscientific alert])

baubles . Ditto here.

A prolonged drought in these parts is about five days

That might be (probably is) a problem in some places, jings, but (a) it's not a new problem, and (b) it will not affect "every house in the country". The "experts" who wrote that bullshit are idiots of the first order.

Anyway, I thought The South had had a wet summer? Wouldn't one expect the ground to be wet after that?

It's just alarmist nonsense. The Indy should be ashamed to publish such rubbish.