The bloke with the shovel

[Kaz]

I know Monkgate, lovely properties - it's such a shame

I worked in Clifton for a while, radio and phone operator at the Securicor base there - the houses were mostly all modern shoeboxes

[Workingman]

When I was stationed at Church Fenton a mate lived up by Clifton Moor and every single time I drove on to the estate the old Val Doonican lyrics came into my head "little boxes, little boxes... and they're all made out of ticky tucky, and they all look just the same" every damned time!

[Kaz]

[Workingman]

He's a bright lad that Sir James Bevan, head of the Environment Agency. He has just said that we should not be building on flood plains unless absolutely necessary and that they are flood resilient, but without defining what 'absolutely necessary' and 'flood resilient' mean.

The man should know all about these things, being the chief, except that he has been a life long diplomat since leaving university with absolutely no qualifications in environmental matters. So the poor lad has to survive on a £180k salary with a 15% performance-related bonus. Friends in the right places, methinks.

[Kaz]

[TheOstrich]

He's a bright lad that Sir James Bevan, head of the Environment Agency. He has just said that we should not be building on flood plains unless absolutely necessary and that they are flood resilient, but without defining what 'absolutely necessary' and 'flood resilient' mean.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stilt_hou ... wnghwe.jpg

[Workingman]

Ha! So at least he can use google. What an inspiration he must be to his staff.

[Workingman]

Flood plains, who needs them when we can have washlands. They are now what we have on the River Aire.... and they have just flooded!

I have been reading the Aire Catchment Flood Management Plan where washlands get mentioned. It is 28 pages of management speak with plenty of vision and hope and positivity lots of warm words of cooperation and partners.

What it lacks is detail. There are no details at all of the practical measures to be taken to implement "the plan". It has a whole load of information on climate change and how many properties are currently at risk and how many more will be if something is not done. What that "something" is is anybody's guess. It reads like a costly back-slapping exercise in doing the square root of SFW. Plan published, box ticked.

Back in the real world Storm Jorge is barrelling in. Virtually the whole of the UK and Ireland is under a yellow rain warning from now till 22:00 Saturday and with 225 flood warnings.

[cromwell]

The village of Fishlake is built on a flood plain. The clues in the name...
It flooded last year.
Apparently they don't need to dredge the river Aire. They say it flows so fast that it "self scours"...
https://www.yorkshirepost.co.uk/news/we ... ng-1995863

Other reasons for not dredging rivers given by the Environment Agency is that it disturbs the fish, and I jest not.
https://www.leeds.gov.uk/parking-roads- ... -phase-two

I would think it would disturb the fish when they end up stranded in a tatie field when flood waters recede. And certainly all the wildlife living on riverbanks get upset when the river floods and they all get drowned. Also let's not forget the humans whose houses get flooded. They get pretty upset.

The more you look at the Environment Agency, the more you think that they are loonies.

[Workingman]

The big problem has to be that there is no holistic work being done and that various agencies, which could all have a part to play, have no joined up thinking.

Defra, the EA, Highways, Water and sewage companies and councils all appear to be doing their own thing without much reference to each other - no overall plan.

I am sat here wondering what effect the big ticket items - defences - used to prevent further Leeds and York floods are now having on these new "washlands". They are known to have impacted the Aire and Calder Navigation. The Aire, Don and Ouse all border these washlands and they have all flooded over the past months.