So this flooding!!!

I’m confused as in your first post you said it was EU directives now nothing to do with the EU. What ever! I’m sticking with lack of money to do basic maintenance.
There's nothing to be confused about. This isn't a remainer/leave rehash. It's very simple. Like I said, the EU lays down directives. The clue is in the name: they're not laws. But the Environment Agency adopts them in full. The notion of "managed retreat" came from the EU and was zealously rolled out by our own bloated and over-powerful civil service quangos without any thought to or understanding or the consequences, just because they can.
 
Council's used to clean road signs as well - I cant think of a single Council which does that now.
Here the Council has outsourced legal advice and they are truly rubbish. They deny all liability under the Highways Act for dangerous potholes, suggest a local driver should have known of the problem etc so they will not accept liability.
My recent attempt at swimming with the car (and a few others) would have been solved by a simple depth guage where river flooding occurs - never see those except as curios these days. We have one stretch of road into Monmouth from the north which regularly floods across the full carriageway to a depth of over 12 " . I judge the depth by the number of abandoned cars.
Potholes - really dangerous ones are everywhere and cyclists must finally get their cumuppence, rather than bad drivers, its bad Council's. Oh and business rates are sky high so the town is slowly dying. parking charges have just been increased by up to 40% - probably to pay for the installation of the unfathomable robot parking ticket dispensers.
 
Now I don't now about any of you guys but I can't remember the last time I saw a dredging boat on any of the rivers around me or to that fact a council gully pump cleaning out the drains
I guess cutbacks again but at the end of the day when regular maintenance does not get done then don't be surprised when problems arise..
Ventilation of my spleen over, thanks for reading this far
Jimmy

Page 4 summary

  • Numerous studies have pointed to significant unintended consequences of dredging, namely:
o Increasing flood risk for communities downstream by speeding up the movement of flood
water through the river and drainage network.
o Destabilising river banks, causing erosion and so risking damage to infrastructure.
o Loss of wildlife and habitats both within the river and across the wider floodplain. These impacts can be significant and permanent.

Source


S
 
Now I don't now about any of you guys but I can't remember the last time I saw a dredging boat on any of the rivers around me or to that fact a council gully pump cleaning out the drains
I guess cutbacks again but at the end of the day when regular maintenance does not get done then don't be surprised when problems arise..
Ventilation of my spleen over, thanks for reading this far
Jimmy
Not council cut back but SEPA (and I guess NE too) wont allow gravel removal. They cite a number of reasons including allowing rivers to find their natural course and protecting spawning beds.
 
It’ll be interesting to see what effect the beaver dams have on flooding.
Also there’s going to be more of them as they populate the countryside.:-|
So if there’s fields flooded before any rain, here’s to what’s it going to be like post Dennis.
 
Page 4 summary

  • Numerous studies have pointed to significant unintended consequences of dredging, namely:

o Loss of wildlife and habitats both within the river and across the wider floodplain. These impacts can be significant and permanent.

Source


S
What about the loss of habitat for the poor buggers who are loosing homes to flooding, a lifetime of possessions/memories swept away...
Typical that newts or water voles have more the right to habitat than humans
 
It, s a national disgrace that all the flood victims past and present get nothing but lame excuses time and time again,as usual brush aside the truth till better times. isn,t it strange that for hundreds of years things go ok ,then its all change and they go tits up!
 
What about the loss of habitat for the poor buggers who are loosing homes to flooding, a lifetime of possessions/memories swept away...
Typical that newts or water voles have more the right to habitat than humans
I don't believe anyone seeks to belittle your concern or the losses of those you refer to but isn't this just one more example of where Man seeks to take from or command the environment (Mother Nature) rather than trying to live with it in all its glorious but oft' challenging guises?

You don't have to be a 16-year old Euro teenager to see we need to be far more sympathetic to the needs of newts and voles.

K
 
Most of the newts and voles have adapted to and become dependent on a landscape that has been managed by man for centuries. Doing nothing and allowing nature to take it's course won't necessarily protect habitats, many of which have been created by ancient management practices. And we can't do nothing if 70 million people are going to live here. If we want a wild untended landscape, brilliant, but it will have to be depopulated. If we want to live here in these colossal numbers, manage and maintain, but do it the right way as we had until recently done for a very long time. We can't have it both ways.
You can't have a wilderness with 1000 people to the square mile. The two things are mutually incompatible.
 
I saw the evening news on 4 earlier and a local labour councillor in North Yorkshire was blaming the landowners and grouse moor owners for not having the moss to soak up water and not planting trees as they help too.
 
Heather moorland absorbs more water and decelerates run-off more efficiently than spruce plantations or scrubland.
Heather moorland rarely persists in nature. Left to itself most upland moorland reverts to scrub. Continuously regenerating heather moorland requires controlled burning which is a costly exercise. Currently grouse shooting is the only economically regenerative business able to fund it.

Sometime we do localised good by accident, even if some people don't care for the particular local activity. Grouse moors are a prime example. We know this but the baggage of shooting living things and worn-out class war antipathy are obscuring the facts. But how do you deploy sense to counter ideology? Answers on a postcard.
 
my biggest bug bear is why are they building new homes on flood plains?
Its a load of tosh about habitats, dredging don't work, the truth is , the land that floods is cheaper to buy, hence more profit for the builders, more rates for the council, so they can have their pay and expense increases, and because the land is no good, no-one complains, so the get away with it.
This land, the UK is so corrupted now, that I am ashamed to call myself British, we are being taken for a ride.
They are quite happy to curtail our leisure activities, close down footpaths, stop camping with the new trespass laws, I am being mugged.
OOOOh i could peel a grape!!!!!!.
 
The natural dam system seems to have been working in the Slad Valley very well...there were some awful "halfway up the door" floods a few (10 or 12) years ago in Stroud.

The council employed a guy who co-ordinated a programme with the landowners through who's land the upland streams ran and they allowed and encouraged a series of dams to form from fallen trees, with some deliberately fallen. The delaying effect of just a few hours enables the downstream water to clear without raising the levels above the culverted capacity. It has been successful so far.

Alan
 
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