Stopping the floods - time to think out of the box

Cheer up KE, I understand we are getting some of London's cast off carriages in the not too distant future.

 

Write your comments here...breathless with the anticipation of such largesse from our "betters" ,TDA!

Write your comments here...

Write your comments here...PS the trains on our local services are older than the pacers

We are fighting a losing battle.  In my children's lifetime big chunks of East Anglia will be under water, where we currently live it is predicted we will be an island.  Private individuals and company's are already funding their own flood defence.  A holiday camp is starting phase 2 of its 5 million pound scheme bringing in more Boulders from Norway to beef up the cliffs

We are fighting a losing battle.  In my children's lifetime big chunks of East Anglia will be under water, where we currently live it is predicted we will be an island.  Private individuals and company's are already funding their own flood defence.  A holiday camp is starting phase 2 of its 5 million pound scheme bringing in more Boulders from Norway to beef up the cliffs

But the difference is that the threat is from the sea not from excessive rain necessarily. Most of the Fens remain stable because of the deployment of cut off channels. Perhaps those clever engineers need to be looking at how they can disperse the volume of water. Expensive but worth thinking about. If Cornelius Vermuvden could do it 400 years ago it might be worth thinking about now?

David

York as flooded for many years, why isn't there a flood barrier same as London? or why is it that London can have money spent stopping it flooding and the rest of the U.K. Have to suffer? It's pathetic. Holland used to flood but it is rare that we hear anything about Holland flooding. They spent money digging dykes so that they guided the water away from residential areas.

 

That is not correct, MollyM. They are just now having to spend Billions of Euros on new flood defences, reinforcing the dyke walls and putting people out of their homes so that they can flood vast extensive of low land to stop cities being flooded. They too were taken by surprise by the extent of rise in sea levels and the high rainfall over the last few years. BBC Radio 4 tonight.

The self-serving banks and building societies share some of the blame as if they didn't give mortgages for these flood-risk properties the developers wouldn't build them.

Where can they build then, all the best high level land is already built on. People don't want to live hundreds of miles away from centres of employment. Farmers aren't just going to sell their land which has been in their families for generations, for building purposes. Should we just force them to do so? Where then will we get our crops to grow, or must we be solely dependent on importing all our fruit, veg and cereals, and at what cost?

The self-serving banks and building societies share some of the blame as if they didn't give mortgages for these flood-risk properties the developers wouldn't build them.

Where can they build then, all the best high level land is already built on. People don't want to live hundreds of miles away from centres of employment. Farmers aren't just going to sell their land which has been in their families for generations, for building purposes. Should we just force them to do so? Where then will we get our crops to grow, or must we be solely dependent on importing all our fruit, veg and cereals, and at what cost?

Developers should pick up the cost of providing adequate drainage, sewerage etc. and build flood-friendly properties, on stilts if necessary as elsewhere in wet countries.

The facts need to faced that it won't stop raining and local authorities, architects and developers must recognise this.

But all this would add to the cost of the properties and then they would not sell. They won't add the extra cost of installing solar panels to new house, which should be a must IMO, for the same reason. The majority of people want a house at the cheapest possible price.

Well put spriddler. It's rained in this country for years,it's time someone came up with a viable solution.

But all this would add to the cost of the properties and then they would not sell.  The majority of people want a house at the cheapest possible price.

That is precisely the trouble Nellie; the majority these days want cheap everything, regardless of quality, then complain that products are unsuitable etc.

We are paying the cost of mopping up the errors anyway through insurance premiums, environmental agency projects and military, police and fire brigade attendance, plus the cost of reinstating electricity supplies and mending the broken up roads.

It's common practice to build properties in Australia, Africa, Holland, India etc. off the ground. I lived in a house on a low cost starter-home estate in Holland where each house was on a 'raft' that lifted in floods and the water supply, drains, gas, electricty was supplied via flexible pipes and cables. Developers here want a quick profit for their fat cats' bonuses and shareholders' dividends.

The Gov't says we need to build 250,000 new homes this year and they also tell us the there was a net influx to this country in 2013 of 225,000 people.

It doesn't take Einstein to work out why we have to build cheap and on unsuitable land.