Rivers of Flood

A few years ago, the boy band, Busted, released a song called Year 3000 which had a refrain that began:

“I’ve been to the year 3000, not much has changed but they live underwater”

Various counties in the UK have had to endure such living conditions in the present year, grimly realising the truth in the saying that it never rains but it pours. The county of Somerset has suffered greatly in the last few weeks and it is estimated that 65 square miles of low lying areas are submerged. Inspite of extreme weather conditions bringing vast amounts of flooding to the Somerset Levels, it wasn’t until the third week of January that a senior Government figure appeared, as the Environment Secretary made an appearance to oversee the arrival of sophisticated pumping equipment from The Netherlands.

More attention was called to the situation when Prince Charles visited some of the worst hit areas of the county on the 4^th February. Sadly, the BBC radio news started with a mocking tone, pointing out that he was travelling on the back of a tractor with a park bench as a “makeshift throne”. This was embarrassing behaviour by the Corporation and editorial staff should’ve had a stern talking to considering the nature of the Prince’s visit was to call attention to the plight of those affected by the situation. 

Nigel Farage of UKIP has turned the heat up on the debate by suggesting that Britain should divert some of its foreign aid budget to help those in the UK who have been most affected by the extreme weather  conditions. Mr Farage had seen his own property in Kent endure some moderate storm damage around Christmas time and was arguably ahead of the Government in reading the mood of the people. This blog has praised the fine work of our soldiers who assisted in distributing aid to those affected by Typhoon Haiyan. It is important that our nation plays a role in assisting in helping to provide water and food supplies in third world nations and doing our bit during disaster recovery, but has empathy with the UKIP leader’s stance that it is unusual to be sending to be sending £300 million to an up and coming nation like India which has its own space programme.

The problem has also become evident in the west of London with severe flood warnings also in place around Berkshire and Surrey. The village of Datchet has seen its centre flooded, with many homes and businesses underwater. The Duke of Cambridge and Prince Harry were seen assisting the army in shifting sandbags in the town. The nearby town of Wraysbury has also experienced flooding and 100 troops were assisting in rescue efforts during the week. It has been confirmed that there are 30,000 sandbags made available to residents in these counties.

It took until the first week of February before the Prime Minister was publicly seen taking command of the situation, declaring that that money was no object and the Government will spend whatever it takes to deal with the issues. He also announced that he was cancelling a trip to the Middle East and would be chairing regular meetings of COBRA.

Back in 2007, there was a massive amount of flooding in Tewkesbury following the wettest summer on record.  The town sits at an area where the River Severn and Avon meet. The fact that no proper flood defences were constructed at the town in spite of being on a flood plain meant that the town was horribly exposed when an extreme weather event occurred. At the time, the Environment Agency were criticised for their response and the Government was accused of not making enough troops available. The Government can’t be expected to control the weather but it can control the response and arguably the response has been slow only some of the lessons from 2007 have been heeded.

In the past, there has been a formula in place where flood defences would be allocated to an area would receive protection if the potential damage was more than 8 times greater than the cost of the defences. It is clear that there is a need to re-think our approach and that the calculation made by an actuary should not determine if people have the right for protection to be offered to their homes, livelihoods and families.