Vocal Voices

Phone "flood line" for help,.
At The Cost Of 40p A Minute.
Now what advice are you given ?
Ensure you keep warm! Don't take risks! Plus A load of waffle, dragged out ensuring the call
"Costs you a fortune"
How the hell can these departments cash in on this disaster, caused by successive governments and environment agencies failing to maintain the waterways and protect public and properties.

So that they can pay for the dredging!!
Just another case of Rip Off Britain.
Have you tried using "SAYNO TO 0870" I can get alternative ordinary land line numbersusing this web site. I do not pay for calls to ordinary land line numbers starting 01, 02, 03, etc.

Gosh that is interesting cruiser. Thanks for information.

It is interesting that the media always promotes the Floodline telephone number, the 0845 xxx xxxx one, rather than the free and much more detailed website: http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/ho ... 31618.aspx

The site will update automatically as the page refreshes, and there is an option to receive direct flood warnings specific to any location. That service could be very useful if, say, you have a relative who lives some distance away, but who needs keeping an eye on.

"Lord" Smith, head the environment agancy, is interviewed in the Telegraph today saying there isn't enough money to do everything.
Sorry, not good enough. The local councils used to dredge the Somerset rivers until they were compelled to hand the job over to the Enivironment Agency, who in very short order scrapped some of the dredging equipment and scaled back operations. Why was the council able to do a good job and why is the the Environment Agency crying the poverty tale?
Smith is a former Labour minister and his face is the definition of "smug".

It has been an interesting exercise following the floods problem(s).

In the beginning it was all down to building on flood plains and tarmacing the land. Spokespeople were put up to attack this type of building, and rightly so, and the construction industry was urged to use more environmentally sympathetic forms of building and drainage; the EA was involved. The media provided us with explanations and graphics as to how the next genertion of housebuilding would mitigate the problems. If WE were going to build OUR houses on land likely to flood we would have to do things differently. Then things changed.

So many people had become victims that just about everyone began to look at the weather and the rainfall patterns and to ask "Why?". Many of them were of the older generation who could remember equally bad periods of weather without the modern devastation, and so other questions arose. From all of this collective analysis new stories emerged; stories of mismanagement, bean counting and flawed flood control/relief schemes, and the new EA does not like where it is today. It has painted itself into a corner regarding waterways and land management and I bet it will come under great pressure once the floods subside to think again and act over the summer months.

I don't think that government will act without that pressure, but a coalition of farmers, householders, councils and, most importantly, the insurance industry, could force its hand.

It's the old story. Maintenance costs money and is unglamorous. It's the first thing to get cut back.
There is always money for the flash stuff.
Like the £100 million the BBC has wasted on it's "digital initiative".
The cost of dredging would have been £4 million, btw.
Not enough money to do the job? I don't think so.

Isn't it odd that those managers who are so quick to do away with maintenance would not fly in a plane or use a lift or stay in an hotel whose fire equipment was not maintained, but are quite happy to reduce it when it does not directly affect them?

Good one Frank! Lord Smith has a lot to answer for, it will be interesting to hear what the idiot has to say at 8.15.
Stop ALL AID until our own problems are sorted. And cut back on the outrageous salaries paid to executives of Charities.
Charity begins at HOME

I saw it Kate, I wanted to slap the man! Typical politician, he just kept blocking the questions and repeating the same old drivel which was nothing to do with what he had been asked