So this flooding!!!

[Apthorpe]

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.

Well my council is short of money to do maintenance and basic functions, but it has plenty to spare for stupid projects and self-promotion - installing pedestrian signposts in low footfall areas several years after everyone started using smartphone maps to find their way; wildflower meadows on small bits of grass where they will never get off the ground; advertising; expensive surveillance; installing 20mph limits that even their own vehicles ignore.
You find me a council or public sector body complaining about austerity, and i could find you widespread wasting of money. While there is a need for underfunded services to be improved, handing more money to these bodies is just frquently a case of ****ing good money after bad.

 

[norma 308]

if councils had any brains and cleaned out grids and drains, there wouldnt be as much flooding in the uk, and get someone out on the street brushing and picking litter up because the uk is now a shithole, i was walking the dog the other day and watched two teenagers eating a take away, and guess what they threw it on the pavement when they had finished and their drinks, and 2feet away was a litter bin, but what made me laugh the girl had a save the planet climate change and zero plastic pollution tee shirt on , and these idiots are our future, and yes i picked up their litter and put it in the litter bin, and while im having a rant doesnt any dog owners pick ther dog**** up any more, ive seen third world country,s that are cleaner than this shithole we live, in this green and pleasant land, yeah right. bs.

Our council management is now run by university grads not timeserved workers moving up they firefight the problems instead of maintaining on a regular cycle , grounds maintenance gangs had a regular area and round who competed in a good way for their area to be the best !
Don’t get me started on the litter my pet hate every lay-by on my stretch of the A14 full of turds and **** bottles
Scum of the earth

 

[AN DU RU FOX]

Building homes on low lying land or flood plains seems to me to be a dumb idea, I certainly would not consider a home somewhere called fishlake or similar.

over half the sites i,m on for four or more builders have all built on low crap land at the side of rivers / streams and ponds ,and you can see if you care to look at the wet/dry ditches that are filled in covered over hedges grubbed out and basically vandalised till its all flags and tarmac. so where is the water going to go?

 

[User00035]

Our council management is now run by university grads not timeserved workers moving up they firefight the problems instead of maintaining on a regular cycle , grounds maintenance gangs had a regular area and round who competed in a good way for their area to be the best !

That's true of every government quango. Closed, incestuous worlds that promote from within or recruit direct from universities theorists with zero real world experience or practical knowledge.

I have frequent battles with Natural England over the regeneration of some neglected SSSI down land I've been working on. The thought processes of people who are making decisions that will have repercussions for generations are just bizarre. They have a lot of power and they cannot be challenged or held to account in any way, yet their knowledge of species and habitats is generally woeful. They'll reel off lists of indicator species they want to see to show that the stewardship programme is on target but they couldn't identify them on the ground if they tripped over them. And they seem to know nothing about tree biology and why, for example, hazel is coppiced, or what happens to it when it is neglected.

 

[Alantoo]

Our council management is now run by university grads not timeserved workers moving up they firefight the problems instead of maintaining on a regular cycle , grounds maintenance gangs had a regular area and round who competed in a good way for their area to be the best !

Those maintenance gangs who knew their patch and could move into management were done away with 30 years ago when CCT was brought in on the back of the "Cost of everything, value of nothing" view of the world. A few years later the rules of CCT were modified to include for added value to be included in the tender assessments, but too late for the old council and railway gangs who had been made redundant, both they and their knowledge discarded and dispersed.

Personally I reckon the modified CCT assessment rules didn't go far enough...there were so many under market price bids that had to be accepted because of CCT and so many contractors who bankrupted their Sub Contractors if they could not find sufficient Variations to make the job pay. And it is still happening, even though the contract terms have been tightened up considerably to allow fewer loopholes.

One solution would have been to insist on 3 bids and be duty bound to pick the middle one. If everybody involved knows from the outset there is then no point in underbidding...both the contractor and the client gets a fair price for the job without the time wasting litigation of the variations or the necessity to screw the subbies....

So simple to improve the world from a keyboard...

Alan

 

[norma 308]

Those maintenance gangs who knew their patch and could move into management were done away with 30 years ago when CCT was brought in on the back of the "Cost of everything, value of nothing" view of the world. A few years later the rules of CCT were modified to include for added value to be included in the tender assessments, but too late for the old council and railway gangs who had been made redundant, both they and their knowledge discarded and dispersed.

Personally I reckon the modified CCT assessment rules didn't go far enough...there were so many under market price bids that had to be accepted because of CCT and so many contractors who bankrupted their Sub Contractors if they could not find sufficient Variations to make the job pay. And it is still happening, even though the contract terms have been tightened up considerably to allow fewer loopholes.

One solution would have been to insist on 3 bids and be duty bound to pick the middle one. If everybody involved knows from the outset there is then no point in underbidding...both the contractor and the client gets a fair price for the job without the time wasting litigation of the variations or the necessity to screw the subbies....

So simple to improve the world from a keyboard...

Alan

Ha your right of course I stopped earth moving 20 yrs ago because of tendering - I was working too far from home passing vans going south while I went north they doing jobs on my doorstep and I on there’s !!
The worlds gone mad far too many people making too much mess and spoiling MY countryside lol
I quite like the look of Alaska if I had my time again guess I’d find something to moan about there though — midges !

 

[bluesako]

guys if i was 18 again you wouldnt see me for dust, coz this shithole country is crawling so far up its own arsehole, just seen a thread on this pc of a 78 year old woman, who has had a snotty letter sent to her by the council for planting some lovely flowers on the verge outside her house god love her its ludicruous bs

 

[reloader54]

guys if i was 18 again you wouldnt see me for dust, coz this shithole country is crawling so far up its own arsehole, just seen a thread on this pc of a 78 year old woman, who has had a snotty letter sent to her by the council for planting some lovely flowers on the verge outside her house god love her its ludicruous bs

Couple who planted flowers on a verge face 'criminal damage' charge

Colin Halsey and his wife Kath planted the flowers outside their home in Northwich, Cheshire, to stop motorists churning up the verge when parking their cars.

www.dailymail.co.uk

You know what I think bs?
I believe it takes a "special" kind of person to become a soldier, nurse,oap carer, ambulanceman, fireman, etc.
in a less positive way it takes a"special" type of person to be a council official jobsworth heartless cnut, or a traffic warden, etc.

when the feck did it become unlawful to take a pride in the area you live in.?
you're right mate this place is becoming a shithole and the shitters look like they're running it.

 

[kes]

Just to mention flooding again--- here the Monnow is peaking and has already passed its highest recorded as with the Wye in Monmouth (+0.8M). All but one back road (single track) is closed into Monmouth from the north and east. The USK has gone walkabout so we are surrounded but on a hill about 150ft above all this. Homes flooded again up the Monnow - last was October 2019.
Just got a bit of sunshine but main river levels still rising as the flood passes down towards the Severn. Mid next week and things might start to get back to 'normal'.
Hope the rest of you lot remain unaffected.

 

[bluesako]

yeah matey thats the one they deserve a medal i know i rant on a bit but there are some wonderful people out there just trying to make this land a wee bit better and then you get scum like these council tw*ts sending nasty letters out to these fantastic people i would have wiped my ars* on it and posted it back bs

 

[bluesako]

Just to mention flooding again--- here the Monnow is peaking and has already passed its highest recorded as with the Wye in Monmouth (+0.8M). All but one back road (single track) is closed into Monmouth from the north and east. The USK has gone walkabout so we are surrounded but on a hill about 150ft above all this. Homes flooded again up the Monnow - last was October 2019.
Just got a bit of sunshine but main river levels still rising as the flood passes down towards the Severn. Mid next week and things might start to get back to 'normal'.
Hope the rest of you lot remain unaffected.

you take care matey hope your safe bs

 

[kenbro]

I can never figure out why, in the 40s, 50s and 60s, small towns (Like ours) had their own council and workers.
Water Board, gas works, electric, street lighting, gulley pot cleaner, flaggers and road maintenance workers, and they were
in evidence every single weekday plus Saturday mornings.
Now, with all the advances in technology and all sorts of magic equipment to cut down on labour times and one man doing the work of 5, why is everything in stit state.
I suppose today’s youths don’t want to learn a trade and do a manual job with pride.
Lots of the old skills gone for good. ‘Cept for alantoo an me .
Only joking there as I know there’ll be others on this board.
Ken.

 

[User00035]

I suppose today’s youths don’t want to learn a trade and do a manual job with pride.
Lots of the old skills gone for good. ‘Cept for alantoo an me .
Only joking there as I know there’ll be others on this board.
Ken.

I can lay you a nice hedge. It'll look lovely and keep livestock in but there's a chance it may not be entirely flood-proof. Some water might get through.

 

[eldon]

Ooh Jim you are just a cynical old wind up merchant.

Having suffered a 1.24m inside flood at work in Nov. 19 then you have to question who sanctioned building on a flood plain?
The resultant insurance claim is likely to exceed £10m and rising.....

 

[xavierdoc]

It’s not just the moronic building of new houses on flood plains and low-lying areas.

Development on green field sites of tarmac-rich, maximum housing density estates that make the most money increases run-off which is channelled into the pre-existing, overwhelmed drainage system, adding to local and downstream problems.

I briefly lived (if you can call it living) on the edge of one such “toy-town” estate that had fields immediately adjacent to it. Even though we were on high ground, the run off from the fields flooded the houses that had been built only years before. No thought had been given to this in the design of the development and panicked remedial work had to be done.

We now live rurally and are familiar with the councils “out-of-sight=out-of-mind” approach to road and drainage maintenance. My wife and I clear the drains and verges around us having given-up calling the council. We’ll probably get a bollocking from the council if we get caught, rather than thanks for doing their work.

 

[User00035]

These are the water meadows beside the river Stour at Blandford in Dorset, photographed today. The second pic shows what are called the Crown Meadows that extend over a mile along the river to the west of the town (the river bank is just in front of that poplar tree).
For years local people fought plans by the town council to build hundreds of homes on the land. It has always flooded from Roman times. They're called water meadows and have never been cultivated (or built on) for a reason. The plans were eventually thrown out a couple of years ago but you can bet they'll be resurrected now Boris is here and determined to cover as much of the country in Chinese concrete as possible.




The embankment in the above pic is a flood defense built after a particularly bad flood in the late 70's. It protects a small low-lying corner of the meadows where the water used to rush through into the town. It's only taken about three acres out of the flood meadow and so far has proved entirely successful and the water has stayed on the flood plain and not entered the town.
This level of flooding is quite normal. Doesn't happen every year, perhaps a five or ten year event but it's been a regular occurrence for as long as anyone can remember. Why on earth anyone would propose building anywhere near this water is beyond me.





The river bank is about 6 feet in front of that seat and somewhere in front of that sign is a four foot weir.
On the other side of the embankment in the background in the top right of the above picture there is a new housing development on the old brewery site. It's still at the preparation stage. So far the site is just a blank expanse of leveled hardcore with the roadways marked out in kerbs. They have installed the groundwater drains and dug a catchment pond from where the water is supposed to discharge into the river. The pond, including the safety barriers, is already completely under water and they haven't laid a single block or spread one square foot of tarmac yet..