UK flooding

bendertherobot

Stevo 666 wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

It's time the government suspended all foreign aid for three to five years and spent all the cash on sorting out infrastructure and compensating the businesses and communities devastated by this winter weather.

Charity begins at home, so the saying goes.

:shock: I agree with you Frank...bizarrely the phrase 'charity starts at home' was exactly what I thought this morning when I read the headlines in the papers

I hate HS2. But it will have economic benefits. How much? Who knows.

But, in relation to let's spend it at home, to protect against these conditions would costs billions. Possibly trillions. In some ways it's similar to why we don't invest in snow ploughs, 99.9 % of the time it's unnecessary.

If we are to spend money then, it seems to me, that, in relation to the levels, the compulsory purchase of the 150 homes flooded is money better spent than protecting them. Harsh I know.

Mikey23

@bendertherobot... plus one in thanks for that. nice to see some common sense from people that know what they are talking about. I was interested to see that the river Tavy which runs through Tavistock and takes water from the western side of Dartmoor is still behaving nicely when one would think that the town might be under several feet of water. I assume that this is because it comes off common land rather than managed land and the ecosystem can deal with extremes as it has done for hundreds of years. Not to say that we go back to nature and give up land management but it does seem that we have created these problems for ourselves in the way that we manage the environment. and yes, i know that dartmoor is a managed environment!

bendertherobot

Mike, this is also worth a read.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfre ... cies-homes

And even the IDB consortium, which has seen no obvious ire directed towards it, acknowledges that dredging is only part of the solution:

http://www.westerndailypress.co.uk/poin ... story.html

bendertherobot

And, on the Tavy, you can see the spikes but, by and large, it works well:
http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/ho ... ionId=3185

Back to dredging. By increasing the volume and flow you can cause havoc downstream. More water going through means more water to try and overtop the banks somewhere. The dredging assumes a flat percentage increase will be met with a flat percentage increase in rainfall etc. Just not that simple.

Frank the tank

Pross wrote:

Frank the tank wrote:

I have no problem what-so-ever with getting wealthy individuals and corporations paying their proper share of tax. However I'm not running the show.

Exactly. Getting others to pay more tax. As I said above everyone wants more but wants someone else to pay. The day I hear someone say 'I'm happy to pay an extra 5p in the £ to pay for a better health service / schools / flood defences' maybe there'll be a chance of things changing.

I would not be against paying a bit more tax for better NHS/infrastructure.

You say getting others to pay MORE tax. I say get others to pay the amount of INCOME TAX they should truley be paying. I am taxed like many PAYE if only EVERYONE was.

Bozman

"When I was a lad".... The ditches at the side of the road were dug out every other year, the brooks and streams were regularly dredged and the rivers were also dredged at regular intervals.
The ditches at the side of the roads are now non existant, the brooks and steams that were 6'-8' wide are now half that width, neither have been touched in at least 20 years and they wonder why everywhere is flooding.

We had two roads that always flooded during the wet winter months leaving one impassable, this year the farmers dug the ditches out around the area that flooded and the result.... The roads haven't flooded this winter.

bendertherobot

The road, ditches etc are not the ea's responsibility. They fall to the LA and IDB's

mamba80

Mikey23 wrote:

@bendertherobot... plus one in thanks for that. nice to see some common sense from people that know what they are talking about. I was interested to see that the river Tavy which runs through Tavistock and takes water from the western side of Dartmoor is still behaving nicely when one would think that the town might be under several feet of water. I assume that this is because it comes off common land rather than managed land and the ecosystem can deal with extremes as it has done for hundreds of years. Not to say that we go back to nature and give up land management but it does seem that we have created these problems for ourselves in the way that we manage the environment. and yes, i know that dartmoor is a managed environment!

The Tavy bears zero resemblance to the Parret or Tone rivers in Somerset, it is one of the fastest rising and falling rivers in england, its upper reaches are on granite and it has little of no agri feed, so doesnt silt up.
i know because i ve kayaked it extensively and even after the most heavy rain fall will start to drop hrs after the last drops of rain have fallen.
the tone & parret are low land rivers, are heavily silted due to farm run off, as farmers now like to till/plant in the autunm and run off goes v. quickly into rivers ditches etc making the problem 10x worse.

bendertherobot

Yes. That was part of another study. Effectively because farmers leave their land cut the water just runs off it and takes everything with it. You'd think they'd also want to work together here.

mr_goo

What I do not understand with this or the prior government is their thought process when it comes to international disasters. When there is an earthquake, hurricane or tsunami at some distant point on the globe, the UK government can somehow jump in to action and send out a fleet of RAF transports or RN Frigates to assist with the aid program. Yet the flooding this winter in my opinion probably ranks as a major national catastrophe and the morons in Westminster stumble and bumble to get into action. It just seems to me that they are more interested in looking good on the world stage and really couldn't give a fig about their own country. Now they are acting to resolve the problem only to score political points for 2015.

bendertherobot

Mr Goo wrote:

What I do not understand with this or the prior government is their thought process when it comes to international disasters. When there is an earthquake, hurricane or tsunami at some distant point on the globe, the UK government can somehow jump in to action and send out a fleet of RAF transports or RN Frigates to assist with the aid program. Yet the flooding this winter in my opinion probably ranks as a major national catastrophe and the morons in Westminster stumble and bumble to get into action. It just seems to me that they are more interested in looking good on the world stage and really couldn't give a fig about their own country. Now they are acting to resolve the problem only to score political points for 2015.

Normally they just send aid or people. But normally just aid.

The people of Somerset don't need food. They need to be about 100ft higher. You can't pack that on a plane.

mr_goo

bendertherobot wrote:

Mr Goo wrote:

What I do not understand with this or the prior government is their thought process when it comes to international disasters. When there is an earthquake, hurricane or tsunami at some distant point on the globe, the UK government can somehow jump in to action and send out a fleet of RAF transports or RN Frigates to assist with the aid program. Yet the flooding this winter in my opinion probably ranks as a major national catastrophe and the morons in Westminster stumble and bumble to get into action. It just seems to me that they are more interested in looking good on the world stage and really couldn't give a fig about their own country. Now they are acting to resolve the problem only to score political points for 2015.

Normally they just send aid or people. But normally just aid.

The people of Somerset don't need food. They need to be about 100ft higher. You can't pack that on a plane.

You know perfectly well what point I am trying to make.

bendertherobot

What aid do you suggest they send?

mr_goo

What aid to send? Probably not quite the point I am trying to make.

The duty of any government is to ensure the safety and security of its own citizens above those of any other country.

Rather than Camoron and Clegg sending off £bns of our tax to aid the development of the third world (China/India ?) or countries in strife after a catastrophe. How about diverting it back into the UK infrastructure (not HS2). Only when we are up to scratch in our own country should we be looking to assist and a grand level those in need.

The railway network is still largely based on the original Victorian network (see Dawlish), the roads and Motorways in nearly every instance need resurfacing. The rivers/ditches/canals all need maintenance....bring back the NRA.
The sewer system needs updating if they propose to build over 250k houses per year.

The priorities are all wrong even when they do spend money. Here in Hampshire and Dorset they are undergoing a street lamp replacement program. And very nice they are too. They illuminate the bloody great potholes beautifully?

What are your suggestions Bender, apart from kissing you shiny metal butt?

bendertherobot

The government are building you new lights?

bendertherobot

Mr Goo wrote:

What aid to send? Probably not quite the point I am trying to make.

The duty of any government is to ensure the safety and security of its own citizens above those of any other country.

Rather than Camoron and Clegg sending off £bns of our tax to aid the development of the third world (China/India ?) or countries in strife after a catastrophe. How about diverting it back into the UK infrastructure (not HS2). Only when we are up to scratch in our own country should we be looking to assist and a grand level those in need.

The railway network is still largely based on the original Victorian network (see Dawlish), the roads and Motorways in nearly every instance need resurfacing. The rivers/ditches/canals all need maintenance....bring back the NRA.
The sewer system needs updating if they propose to build over 250k houses per year.

The priorities are all wrong even when they do spend money. Here in Hampshire and Dorset they are undergoing a street lamp replacement program. And very nice they are too. They illuminate the bloody great potholes beautifully?

What are your suggestions Bender, apart from kissing you shiny metal butt?

The duty of human beings is to help all who suffer. But the diversion of funds earmarked for all sorts of projects is over simplistic.

The question is what our priorities are. HS2 almost certainly isn't one. But, as I said above, it looks like it does have an economic benefit. I'm not a fan. But there we are.

What you've proposed relates to a few different areas. Local authority functions, infrastructure projects and flooding. It's not entirely helpful to mix up so many things as it oversimplifies where the responsibility lies.

Flooding's a bit more complicated than just building defences or doing some dredging. Some of it falls to government, some to the EA and some to IDB's. What they do is affected by what we do and, crucially, what land owners and developers do.

Have a read of the links I posted. It's not as simple as dredging, or building a wall or culvert. It's not as simple as chucking money at a problem. The causes need to be understood. What you're seeing is hysterical, emotional and understandable reaction to unprecedented weather. We've seen low pressure systems batter the UK for 2 months. Sometimes you cannot build a system to cope with something like that. Or, rather, you might be able to do so do the GDP of a small country to protect a small area. And that's fine. You do it, you move onto protect the next in line, or, sometimes the one directly down the line, because by doing what you've done you just shift the danger. This is about water, just about one of the most difficult things to manage, move and protect against. Sometimes, whilst there might be things which could have been done better, it really is no-one's fault.

adamfo

As far as I can work out the UK foreign development aid budget is £12 billion a year and rising. In per capita terms only the Nordic countries and a couple of Arab oil states give more. Norway links aid to trade something the UK almost uniquely doesn't do apart from in defence procurement .

India gets £280 million a year and calls in peanuts and not wanted. We were giving China £50 million a year up to 2010. This was mainly for specific environmental projects. Aid to Russia also ceased in 2010 although it never amounted to much.

Incredibly the last labour government were also giving development aid to Singapore, a country which has a slightly higher GDP per capita than the UK.

Given the foreign aid budget is almost the same size as the entire Police budget, I would fund UK emergency relief efforts from it.

Pross

Mr Goo wrote:

.....,the roads and Motorways in nearly every instance need resurfacing.

County roads yes but the motorways are generally in good condition and at least comparable with those in other Western European countries. When potholes do appear they are usually think as an emergency repair. Council maintained roads on the other hand are deteriorating fast.....

Frank the tank

Perhaps if everyone paid all their income tax councils would have a bit more money to spend aye.

Mikey23

@bendertherobot.... talking sense. But will that stop us playing the blame game? i doubt it...

bendertherobot

Mikey23 wrote:

@bendertherobot.... talking sense. But will that stop us playing the blame game? i doubt it...

You'll see this morning that Pickles has admitted the dredging failure. So Smith will be gone soon. Possibly Patterson as well.

rayjay

Frank the tank wrote:

Perhaps if everyone paid all their income tax councils would have a bit more money to spend aye.

Do you mean , If all these companies raking in millions of pounds in this country and then avoiding paying the tax they should be by having smart accountant's

Do you mean some of the wealthiest people also having tax avoidance schemes.

or do you mean some bloke who earns £40 / 50 a day and gets cash in hand.,,thats going to stop the floods

I know what ones we should be going after ....

If they want to take their business services away then they can Fu%K off , Go and take your full cream coffee dream somewhere else.

Stevo_666

This was a sensible discussion about flooding, it's now turning into another left wing 'solve everything by collecting more tax' thread :roll: It's like a socialist version of Pavlov's dogs. I think we've already had the debate here about whether it's a good idea

The original idea by frank of reallocating our spending to prioritise was actually not a bad one.

rolf_f

bendertherobot wrote:

Mikey23 wrote:

@bendertherobot.... talking sense. But will that stop us playing the blame game? i doubt it...

You'll see this morning that Pickles has admitted the dredging failure. So Smith will be gone soon. Possibly Patterson as well.

Quote from Pickles (clearly either a nasty piece of work or simply very, very stupid).

"We made a mistake, there's no doubt about that and we perhaps relied too much on the Environment Agency's advice" ."I am really sorry that we took the advice … we thought we were dealing with experts."

I love the reference to relying too much on EA advice. From where would he prefer to get his 'advice' from? He isn't in a position to rely on others advice as he doesn't make these decisions (that's what the EA is for) and that's right because he knows absolutely nothing about the problems. I'll be impressed if he can find a reputable expert anywhere in the world who agrees with his politically skewed and unknowledgeable opinions.

Why do we end up having unpleasant, stupid fools like this in charge of us?

mamba80

Stevo 666 wrote:

This was a sensible discussion about flooding, it's now turning into another left wing 'solve everything by collecting more tax' thread :roll: It's like a socialist version of Pavlov's dogs. I think we've already had the debate here about whether it's a good idea

The original idea by frank of reallocating our spending to prioritise was actually not a bad one.

Well, unless you think the private sector is going to provide the funds free of charge, where do you suppose the money is going to come from? maybe a PFI solution that we can pay through the nose for the next 50 years?

I ve just done 3 hrs riding a mixture of lanes and A and B roads, every section was pot holed and damaged, the roads around Plymouth are in a similar state, the task to put right all of this is mammoth, requiring billions, let alone new/replacement flood defences as sea levels rise.

The amounts we can move from foreign aid isn't going to be enough or in a timely manner - I think in reality we can hope for is this a "one off" event, give us some to make do and mend, as a local seamstress would say.

bendertherobot

Rolf F wrote:

bendertherobot wrote:

Mikey23 wrote:

@bendertherobot.... talking sense. But will that stop us playing the blame game? i doubt it...

You'll see this morning that Pickles has admitted the dredging failure. So Smith will be gone soon. Possibly Patterson as well.

Quote from Pickles (clearly either a nasty piece of work or simply very, very stupid).

"We made a mistake, there's no doubt about that and we perhaps relied too much on the Environment Agency's advice" ."I am really sorry that we took the advice … we thought we were dealing with experts."

I love the reference to relying too much on EA advice. From where would he prefer to get his 'advice' from? He isn't in a position to rely on others advice as he doesn't make these decisions (that's what the EA is for) and that's right because he knows absolutely nothing about the problems. I'll be impressed if he can find a reputable expert anywhere in the world who agrees with his politically skewed and unknowledgeable opinions.

Why do we end up having unpleasant, stupid fools like this in charge of us?

It's weirder than that. Who is the "We" he speaks of? Governments don't do dredging. Sure, they can provide more funding for it to their AGENCIES, but the language is very odd.

It's almost certainly a precursor to having a go at the Agency despite all agreeing that the job they are doing on the ground is first rate.

Stevo_666

mamba80 wrote:

Stevo 666 wrote:

This was a sensible discussion about flooding, it's now turning into another left wing 'solve everything by collecting more tax' thread :roll: It's like a socialist version of Pavlov's dogs. I think we've already had the debate here about whether it's a good idea

The original idea by frank of reallocating our spending to prioritise was actually not a bad one.

Well, unless you think the private sector is going to provide the funds free of charge, where do you suppose the money is going to come from? maybe a PFI solution that we can pay through the nose for the next 50 years?

I ve just done 3 hrs riding a mixture of lanes and A and B roads, every section was pot holed and damaged, the roads around Plymouth are in a similar state, the task to put right all of this is mammoth, requiring billions, let alone new/replacement flood defences as sea levels rise.

The amounts we can move from foreign aid isn't going to be enough or in a timely manner - I think in reality we can hope for is this a "one off" event, give us some to make do and mend, as a local seamstress would say.

If it is a one off then reallocating UK foreign aid money can certainly help - its around £11 billion pa.

If this is part of a bigger problem then no feasible amount of additional tax will solve this. It's already effectively acknowledged by the plans to leave some areas to be 'reclaimed' by the sea etc as it is probably not feasible to keep them defended.

rolf_f

bendertherobot wrote:

It's weirder than that. Who is the "We" he speaks of? Governments don't do dredging. Sure, they can provide more funding for it to their AGENCIES, but the language is very odd.

It's almost certainly a precursor to having a go at the Agency despite all agreeing that the job they are doing on the ground is first rate.

I fear you may be right. That said, Pickles probably should watch his back too. When all of this is all over, there will be independent reviews of what happened carried out and when they show what everyone in the business knows, that dredging would have made little difference, Cameron and Pickles will be the ones having some questions to answer.

They are playing this like spiteful children in the playground and it does them no favours at all.

rick_chasey

Can't remember what I was watching but they had some expert with some good quality looking credentials talking about how to solve this now and prevent it in the future.

He was saying that dredging is really only part of a wider solution and is only applicable for certain instances. He then accused both sides of the government for fixating on dredging as a political rally cry rather than sensible governance.

bendertherobot

Rolf F wrote:

bendertherobot wrote:

It's weirder than that. Who is the "We" he speaks of? Governments don't do dredging. Sure, they can provide more funding for it to their AGENCIES, but the language is very odd.

It's almost certainly a precursor to having a go at the Agency despite all agreeing that the job they are doing on the ground is first rate.

I fear you may be right. That said, Pickles probably should watch his back too. When all of this is all over, there will be independent reviews of what happened carried out and when they show what everyone in the business knows, that dredging would have made little difference, Cameron and Pickles will be the ones having some questions to answer.

They are playing this like spiteful children in the playground and it does them no favours at all.

There's some interesting stuff knocking round about putting birds lives before peoples. Protecting wetlands etc. Or, if you like, **** off Europe. Have a google of sluice gate Somerset. Interesting conspiracy theories about the Agency not letting the water out. But, on the other side of that gate, is a Nature Reserve. Open it and I suspect that it would be wiped out. And that's IF opening it is even useful or sensible in the first place (it's open but only partially so).

There's also a lot of rhetoric about how our Agencies are so overstaffed compared to *pick your country*. But comparisons are useless when you consider that other Environment Agencies might be smaller or bigger depending on what they actually do.

I sense this is a watershed (sic) moment. And that, unfortunately, those who do very good work will be paying for the type of event we might a) not see again or b) will become so normal that you simply have to relocate people.