Vocal Voices

There looks to be plenty of evidence from up and down the country that when we protect an area recently flooded the next incident moves the flooding on - upstream or downstream. This certainly looks to be the case with the Sheaf and Don in recent days. We have also seen it on the Avon, Severn, Thames, Ouse(s) - York and Lewes - Somerset levels and many other places..

Another thing that always crops up is the dredging (lack of it) on the lower reaches. Farmers, landowners and local councils all want it, but the Environment Agency seems to be against. On the local news the other day an EA spokesman said that one of the problems was not dredging but that a pumping station failed ... or as one local asked: "Pumping it to where, the already flooded fields?"

We certainly do seem to be shifting the problem.
Years ago when I played cricket my team Old Sharlston used to play a village named Fishlake, near Doncaster.
Fishlake is well named now - it's mostly underwater, cricket pitch included. It's the first time the village has flooded in 100 years.
A local farmer said drains haven't been cleaned and the river hasn't been dredged.
What is it with not dredging the rivers?
Does the Environment Agency not want to do it?
Their name is mud on Fishlake atm anyway.
At 5pm on the day in question they said there was no need for sandbags as houses would not flood.
A few hours later the houses did flood and two hours after they had flooded the EA sent households a warning text!
It's about time the Environment Agency were told to pull their socks up.

Many years ago when I used to go walking in the Dales and on the moors at Baildon and Ilkley I would come across series's of ditches cut diagonally across the hillsides. They were only about a foot wide and maybe 18 inches deep and they were apparently there to create soakaways on the hill and stop the water getting to the becks which would then get to the streams and then the rivers. They were simple things and seemed to have a good effect, but like dredging they seem to have disappeared or fallen into disrepair.

I noticed this year that our local "river" in the country park, which is under the auspices of the EA, wasn't cleared, nor were the banks tidied back. As a result, by this autumn, the watercourse was choked by reeds and had been rendered extremely narrow in places. Thankfully, we haven't had any flooding this year, despite plenty of "alerts", but it would have been far better if the EA had managed the watercourse properly during the early summer months when the river level was low.

The "pushing the problem downstream" effect has surely been known about for years - all the flood alleviation schemes on the River Severn starting at Ironbridge in Shropshire and then encompassing Bridgnorth, Bewdley, Worcester and Upton-on-Severn, helped contribute to the Tewkesbury floods of 2007.

In Lincoln they pumped excess water out of the city to the country now there are horrendous flooding in that area and Doncaster way it's terrible for everyone in those areas

Are they just protecting cities and letting villages get flooded?

On Look North just now the man from the EA, Mr Gill, said not, but logic dictates that if you stop a breach in one place then all things being equal that water will breach somewhere else. It could be upstream due to back pressure or downstream due to volumetric flows.

cromwell wrote:Are they just protecting cities and letting villages get flooded?

Sadly, it does look like it

Workingman wrote:On Look North just now the man from the EA, Mr Gill, said not, but logic dictates that if you stop a breach in one place then all things being equal that water will breach somewhere else. It could be upstream due to back pressure or downstream due to volumetric flows.

Yes, I saw Mr Gill and wasn't overly impressed. One thing that did catch my attention is when he said the Environment Agency were legally forbidden not to cause problems for one community at the expense of another; not to flood one place to save another. But like you say logic would seem to contradict him. I missed the expert who said that Fishlake had been flooded to save Doncaster; that would have been interesting.

So if the EA admit they are saving cities at the expense of small towns and villages they would be admitting to acting illegally. Yet evidence (like Os says, the Tewksbury floods) would seem to show that this is actually happening.

One last extremely cynical thought. If an area half a mile square floods in a city, how many properties would be affected and what would the insurance claims add up to?
But if an area in the countryside half a mile square floods, with most of that being fields and comparatively fewer properties? What's the damage then?

cromwell wrote:One thing that did catch my attention is when he said the Environment Agency were legally forbidden not to cause problems for one community at the expense of another; not to flood one place to save another.

That's why they do modelling, so that there will always be one or two to cover their backs. Models, unfortunately, can be made to say anything when working on the GIGO principle.

And, like you, I am cynical. Westminster / Belgravia or the Isle of Dogs - tough call, what?