The flood defences "did not fail"

And so the back-covering begins...

BBC News Article

So, if they didn't fail, surely that means that they were not built to a specification that was fit for purpose? And therefore that means that the governing bodies who specified and paid for the things failed?

 

Maybe not defences on their own, but surely it is now abundantly clear that something is fundamentally wrong with the whole government/DEFRA strategy? I understand that the weather was extreme, but it is not the first time that it has been extreme - furthermore, have we not had loads of people in the know banging on for years that climate change is going to make events commonplace?

The real insult will come when there is a hosepipe ban later on this year........

 

There is always a solution to a problem, Pete. We can't just shrug our shoulders and say it's "unprecedented".........we have to the Government for that.!!! No one has listened to the Scientists who've been warning about more wet and violent weather, the Government has denied cutting back on flood prevention but in fact the National Audit Office has pointed out the the Government has cut back by 6%, which in real terms equates to 10%.
The Somerset floods were partially caused by cut backs over the years and consequently lack of dredging yet, again, the Government failed to listen to local experts advice because it was far from the Mandarins of London who were only interested in cutting back yet again.

 

It's not about blame, Pete, we can leave that to the arguing political parties who point the finger at every one but themselves.

You can if you know it's coming and that it will happen in the future. We have to look at the problem area, listen to the local experts and those people who believe they have an answer to the problem. We know that more high rainfalls will happen, probably even more than has happened, in the future and we cannot just say "Oh, well, that's Life". We're still building on flood plains despite the Government saying it has stopped planning for it, so there's a lot of double talk going on with Politicians mouthing words of sincere regret and promising more action and more investment in flood defences when, in fact, the opposite is happening.

If you talk to the people who have been flooded repeatedly, lost their livelihood, can't get insurance, who know that the Government has been cutting back on flood defences, that the present defences were computer modeled on "estimates" over 20 years old and were influenced and weakened even further by the reluctance of Governments to spend the appropriate amount of money...........then the answer is, Yes, build the walls higher, make sure that pumps won't fail, that ideas of diverting and handling flood waters are listened to.

If you plan properly and listen to the local people who have the knowledge and expertise then probably nobody.

I listened to, and watched, today the Parliamentary inquiry into the floods and flood defences that have happened. One of the £300,000 salaried Directors of the Environmental Agency defended himself by saying that the Agency was in the business of "lowering risk" than actually planning for or looking for methods of flood prevention..........which, to me, is pathetic and band aid plaster thinking. There is expert and scientific thinking out there that believes we have to not only acknowledge that even more higher rainfall will occur but that we can take steps to alleviate the problem............but it will take radical thinking and the spending of real money and not the promised mist like "money" that the Government is saying they are spending.