Floods!

All governments ignore advice like flood plain building and planning. They need their asses kicked.
Their appear on the media talking a good talk but all the persuasion in the world trying to convince us of the rightness of their actions isn't going to stop the changing weather

fullfact.org/factcheck/economy/flood_defences_funding-50193

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/12/28/simon-danczuk-needs-to-learn-some-economics-and-apologise-when-he-has/

Simon Danczuk thinks we should not spend so much money on Bangladesh and spend it here on flood defences.
Another example of Danczuk being a first class idiot.

Mr P has worked with some Local Govs in Somerset as a consultant on flood plain management.

He assess the areas and designs solutions to (hopefully) minimise risk. At the end of BOTH of his last 2 contracts, he was told there was no money left to actually do the work needed!

There needs to be less animal grazing on uplands. Plant trees and let some decent grass grow so the ground holds the water.

It is mostly down to money. Or the absence of same.

rosequartz if construction companies are left to their own devices and not controlled by planning they will build 2 storey 3/4 bedroomed detached properties with gardens. This method of house building leads to sprawling low-density estates - and then everyone needs a car because public transport not cost effective. Strong planning controls can lead to much higher density development, using less land and make bus routes worth running as well.

Read an article this morning about how the current flooding in Cumbria has been worsened because the rivers have not been dredged since 1990 in keeping woth the govt's and the EU's plan to "get water back onto flood plains" (paraphrased).

Sonce there has been upland sheep grazing on the Cumbrian fells for thousands of years, without this kind of excessive flooding, it seems to me that this may be the largest inflencing factor in today's flooding. It's not land use practices that have changed (except for more building on flood plains; don't know of that applies in Cumbria too) in Cumbria but land, or rather, mountain runoff water management.

All governments ignore advice like flood plain building and planning

That is absolutely right whitewave. It's no good putting all the blame on the present government and what has happened in the past few years, it's a culmination of the policy failures of consecutive governments.
Too much building on flood plains, policy change (or inaction) on proper maintenance of waterways, lack of dredging, less drain maintenance, more tree felling etc etc.

Animals have grazed uplands for centuries without a problem; however, a few years ago, in certain areas near here there was a lot of tree felling on steep slopes resulting in landslips. Thank goodness they seem to be replanting trees now.

Was Rosequartz advocating ditching or relaxing building controls? Did I miss something in her post? I thought it said that if we need more housing it has to go somewhere and building over any land lessens the area where water can sink down to the water table.

Stop building on flood plains, plant more trees, plough fields across the slope not up and down it, maintain road drainage better and clear clogged drains, insert flood reservoirs on high ground with overflows piped past towns at risk.

Protecting at the point where water threatens homes is too late. Action needs to be taken higher up than that, so that there is not a sudden surge of water lower down. Water flows downhill, unless it is diverted or soaks away.

Just listened to an interview on Jeremy vine program with a man from York. (Can't remember his name) who said that millions of pounds have been spent paying various consultants to write reports after reports after reports all basically saying the same thing. Very little money spent on anything practical. They are also "arguing" that if it were down South/London then there would be no expense spared.

if construction companies are left to their own devices and not controlled by planning
The planners didn't do a great job, did they, allowing flood plains to be built on with new housing for so many years.
I don't remember advocating the ditching or relaxing of planning controls. However, commonsense does need to be applied. When a well-known personality tried to get planning permission to lift his house onto stilts because it has been flooded, planning was refused. If more and more land is liable to flooding, then perhaps houses should be built on stilts or with a flood-proof type of construction as they do in other countries.

There were places in the south of England flooded a couple of years ago. Nothing much done there either. Please don't make this a north/ south thing. There are plenty of deprived areas in london and the south where money not spend on basics. We are not all living in luxury in the south!

"You might also argue against looking at capital spending alone, with some evidence that in practice there’s a “grey area” between capital and resource spending. For instance some projects to dredge rivers are funded from the capital budget on the basis that they’re large in scale, while dredging the same stretch of water the following year can be counted as routine maintenance spending.

In the past the government has pointed to total funding, not just capital spending, when defending its record on flood spending. This includes the resource budget. The government has pledged to protect the part of this budget that includes maintenance to flood defences, but it’s not immediately clear how the total resource budget will fare."

The problem of who funds what. The government can say it is spending lots on flood defences, etc., but the maintenance is left up to the councils, whose budgets are cut year after year.
The government is spending the same amount over the next five years as Labour spent over its last five years, yet the problems have increased quite dramatically.

According to the government's spending review on flood defence, 2014, there was a real terms increase in spending of over three quarters between 1997 and 2010, so I do not think the Labour Party can be blamed for not spending on flood defences.

".151
The government will continue to prioritise investment in flood defences. The
government’s £2.3 billion capital programme will invest in over 1,500 schemes to give 300,000
homes greater security from flooding by 2021. Flood defence maintenance funding will also be
protected, and DEFRA will work with the Environment Agency to generate 10% efficiencies by
2019-20 with all savings reinvested to better protect another 4,000 homes"

This is from the spending review. According to the government's flood review mentioned previously, one in six homes is threatened by flooding of one sort or another.

he amount from the government's spending review would not be enough to protect York, let alone Yorkshire. And ther's another four years to go before the end of this parliament.

Quite right suzied
I remember that the last flooding resulted in a Somerset -v- Thames Valley contest (not so much on here that I remember).

so I do not think the Labour Party can be blamed for not spending on flood defences

Blame seems to be a word bandied around quite a lot, and it is a pity. Instead of squabbling over who did or did not do what, they should all be pulling together in what is becoming a national crisis.

Why is Simon Danczuk a first class idiot for suggesting more money should be diverted to help the UK flooding problems? Just wondering.

Does Bangladesh not flood?
How many Bangladeshi die in their floods compared to here?
What's a Bangladeshi life worth?

It was you, roseq, who said that all governments were to blame. I was just pointing out that the Labour government was spending more on flood defences than the previous government. This government does not spend more than the Labour government did.
In fact there was a new law to be brought in about it in April 2010, but it was put on the back burner.

Sometimes flood defences exacerbate the problem further downstream; the Jubilee River is one instance and although the person in charge of the project was repeatedly warned of the consequences it went ahead with devastating results for the people further down the Thames.

Failure to maintain rivers, drains, failure to build properly to withstand flooding are all areas to be looked at. Regular planned maintenance, pro-action not reaction.

A unified flood defence policy is needed, properly thought out and implemented, with consultation between all the various areas that are likely to be affected. It is no use defending your own town and sending the floodwater on down to the next.

Don't local authorities in Bangladesh have funds of their own? Taxpayers and benefactors of their own? Do the rich and well-to-do contribute to defending the vulnerable areas in their own back-yards? The impression I get is that there is enough money in some layers of Indian/Bangladeshi society to allow for conspicuous consumption, so is a proportion of that wealth being channelled into public works? (without corruption leading to poor materials and corner-cutting and thence to collapses and failures)

We blame our government for the failures of the flood defence system, do Indians or Bangladeshis also blame their government, and - importantly - are they doing something to force them to take action?

Whatever, it all requires money to be spent on it.
This government is guilty of non-action. It gets reports, promises money and does nothing.
Except that Cameron goes and buys himself a new pair of wellies. I wonder what sort York requires.

I agree except I'd called it flood prevention, not flood defence. Maybe being picky about words but defence suggests to me that flood are expected whereas prevention suggests that we can prevent most if not all such flooding after heavy rain if we maintain river the water courses to cope with very wet weather such as we've been having recently.

energydesk.greenpeace.org/2015/12/10/investigation-government-planning-thousands-of-new-homes-to-be-built-in-flood-zones/

You were saying?

Good post Elegran

Yes, quite right thatbags, flood prevention not flood defence - what I meant when I said pro-action not reaction.

Blame and point-scoring is a waste of time and energy, on here and in politics.