Floods!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!

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.

fullfact.org/factcheck/economy/flood_defences_funding-50193

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

What's your answer, then, roseq, get rid of the increasing population? How do you suggest we do that?

Well, you get all the photos with that link.

The one I hoped to specifically link to was the Star Inn sign.

A comment on yorkradio; if a city floods in the north and a southerner is not there to see it, did it even flood?

twitter.com/hashtag/yorkfloods?src=hash

I hope this works.

www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2015/12/28/paying-for-flood-defence-work-is-easy-unless-youre-looking-in-the-petty-cash/

So how do we answer those people who keep shouting for more and more housing? More building - surely not on flood plains as was extensive under the last Labour government - still means building on land which at present soaks up surface water.

We can't cover all the high ground with housing and all the infrastructure associated with an increasing population.

In 2010 the EA was told to divert the maintenance budget to high profile flood defences at the same time cutting the budget for new flood defences as well. They have consistently ignored advice. The latest is mitigation for wildlife protection. However not sure if that will run as many wealthy landowners value wildlife conservation.

I lived in York for ten years and we had four hundred year events in that time. The problems of increased flooding were known about then. Two hundred year events are possible in ten years, but not four.
There was a photo of the King's Arms with the Ouse nearly up to the top of the ground floor windows. Never seen it quite that high before.
The council were saying that we need to make buildings more flood resilient, concrete floors instead of wooden, and electrical sockets higher up the wall so that they are not vulnerable. The King's Arms did all that in 2000. The ground floor sockets would have to be on the first floor!

Anyway, Cameron's in York today, so I am sure they are grateful, JessM.
He will be able to see for himself the effects of ignoring good advice.
Climate change? What climate change?

Lots of factors in play here aren't there. Planning issues - building houses on flood plains, design of buildings etc. Flood prevention - drain clearing budgets etc. The extent to which it makes sense to invest in big engineering projects. (Obviously there must be some kind of guideline for these in terms of benefits from a project.) At the moment, on the radio, the head of EA is talking about the fact that all our existing flood defences (and some of the planning) is based on historical data but that the future is not the past. Our weather is changing and extreme weather events are also increasing.
The government were advised of this in October by the climate change advisory committee that the risk of flooding will increase beyond historical data and that they need a strategy to address this.
However they seem to have shrugged this off. Of course it has implications for their carbon reduction strategy, for spending (which they seek to avoid unless the HS2 is mentioned) and for planning and regulations. This government far from being "the greenest government ever" - as Cameron promised 5 years ago has turned out to be anything but. They don't like regulation (farmers for instance have been let off an obligation to conserve soils) and they are deeply conflicted about planning (they want to control everything centrally but at the same time want to devolve all planning consents - or rather lack of consents, to local communities.)
Their main effort re flooding seems to have been to press the insurance business to spread the risk of flooding onto everyone's home insurance - so we all get to pay for this damage folks. If your home insurance policy goes up then that is why.
Be of good cheer, though, flooded people of the North. When the Thames valley was flooded Cameron promised unlimited funds to help. So contact your MPs and ask when the north is going to get unlimited funds.

www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/09/cameron-government-rejected-flood-risk-warnings-from-climate-advisers?CMP=share_btn_tw

A new flood plain is being created near our home at huge expense. It's needed because permission was given to build on the existing - functioning and effective - flood plain triggering flooding in previously 'safe' areas. I truly don't understand. Our actions cause so much harm.

The way to mitigate this new normal is to plan for proper flood defences and proper maintenance of existing defences and looking after rivers etc. We can't do this if we constantly cut our budgets.

There's something terribly wrong about all this; it's happening so often now we're almost getting to accept it as normal.

Just seen that York hospital switchboard is out of order because of the flooding. Hope 111 is not affected.

Roseq it's very true that farmers have to do their bit. Good on those who maintained the ditches.

But I phoned an ex-neighbour today who is in one of the affected areas and she tells me they are in danger of flooding from surface water. The local landowner (who knows nought about farming) hired a gang of pickets with extra heavy machinery onto his land to harvest vegetables in the autumn and all the field drains have collapsed under the weight. The fields are flooded because of this but the ditches are DRY as there's nothing to take the water off the fields and into the ditches.