by Workingman » 03 Feb 2014, 18:24
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.
