They Were Warned

There have been many warnings about the poor state of flood defences they have cropped up in the Press under two headings , The danger of building 3,000,000 new homes in the South East (1,000,000 of which are for immigrants who have not even arrived yet )and set against he wastefulness of fake environmental posturing courtesy of smarmy wonk Milliband

Just one example Paul Ecclestone in the Daily Telegraph some time ago

“ FEWER THAN HALF THE COUNTRIES DEFENCES IN HIGH RISK AREAS ARE AT THE REQUIRED LEVEL “ this was according to the national audit office. The environment agency has failed in its stated objectives and was called on by an all Party commons committee to explain. The committee referred to its last warning in 2001 and noted that it had been ignored. The money has been there but the reorganisation of the environmental Agency taking over what Local Authorities had done seems to have bogged down delivery.
Typically the problem was in late and patchy delivery of the objectives not helped by the confusion cause by handing over responsibilities of Local Government to the environment agency.

Furthermore the methods of flood prevention have been flawed. I have to quote this face peeling blast of anger from Auntie Flo

“What's the govt's solution? SuDs - flood retention systems.......
They cannot cope with either the hugely increased rainwater runoff (which becomes floodwater in storms) that concreting over our green soakaways (fields) for development produces, or the additional waste water imported into all of this development. ......But the theory says nothing about: Deliberately overloaded SuDs = floodsBadly designed SuDs = floods
SuDs can't cope with heavy rainfall/storms = floodsOverloaded Suds can cope even less with heavy rainfall = ongoing, bigger floodsSafety concerns of 100,000s gallons of water torrenting across public footpaths etcSuDs here (everywhere?) raise the level of the water table = increased flood riskSuds here (everywhere?) raise the level, volume and velocity of streams, turning them into raging torrents = potential floods.
In order to appear part of a swanky, price upping, wetland landscape, some SuDs' systems of streams, weirs, swales, balancing ponds, reed beds are unfenced and don't have signage explaining the risk .......”

I was well aware of the numerous warnings about the poor preparation for this real environmental problem and so was the Government . Why is noone saying . “You were warned and you did nothing “. David Cameron is blamed for gesturing in Rwanda but after the event everything is a gesture , Brown is not blamed for his Governments real failings .