Now, I pose this question and use his name as he heads up the current administration. I came across this today as part of my ongoing collaborative record of the Orwell Docklands.

With all that is happening up North with 1:200 year floods occurring of late on a 1:2 weeks ratio  some serious re-thinking is required. I enjoyed studying Geography at school. In fact I wanted to study Geography, Biology and Art for A level but back in those days, pupils were not allowed to  study subjects they wanted to piece together, one had to fit in with teaching curricula. Some pretty basic lessons were taught in those days (late 60s early 70s) about the importance of catchment areas, natural river systems and floodplains including Oxbow lakes and the like plus the importance of upland management and the serious purpose of upland bogs and forests. Now, it is fair to say that much of the uplands forestation had been denuded  a while back but my childhood in the North West was a regular soggy affair, but not as soggy as Manchester, but that is sat where the prevailing moisture laden clouds did their precipitation thing on account of the Pennines getting in the way.

We frequently camped in North Wales during the trout season as the old man was in a syndicate on the River Dee and I do recall one occasion when farmer Jones came down in the middle of the night and told us to decamp and get out of the valley. This was in the days before the flow from Lake Bala was controlled. It was a frightening scene, but one with a salutary lesson.  We were camped on a natural floodplain and floodplains are designed by nature to flood so when I saw this sign today I immediately thought of King Cnut and how futile the alleged legend was and how apparent and futile the efforts are now across the nation to contain something that ought not to be contained.

This image with all the mixed signage sums up what is happening with this government’s approach to the problem. It is not of their making as all this is is reaction to an effect with out understanding the cause.

Now this sign was on the hoarding.

It is a well known historical fact that the area that Suffolk County Council and Ipswich Borough Council offices are built on and Ipswich Town Football ground for that matter was open water meadows in the dim and distant past and this is what amazes me about the very offices that dictate planning rules and regulation  locally, they build in an area liable to flooding. Why?

We are relatively lucky down here as most of our threat comes from surge tides funneling down the North Sea. We do however see the floodplain of the Gipping working when that overflows upstream.

Some of the places up North that have been devastated recently on several occasions are not new communities, they are long established communities and events that they have experienced recently are as a result of something more that just heavy rainfall. Cumbria is a very wet county, always has been. Trying to protect lower reaches of river systems from overflowing their banks in times of stress is as futile as Cnut trying to turn back the tide. Cameron and his cohort need to address the fundamental problems of what has changed in our management of the environment as a whole and not just react to events.

The problem really is the problem here and the sooner they address overall environmental stewardship coupled with the global warming effect then the better off we will all be.

I pity the people who cannot get insurance for the homes in these affected areas. This is another area of of commerce that I find intriguing in that many people paying into a large pool on the vague promise that if something bad happens to you and your chattels, you will be recompensed. Well Ho, Ho Ho, what a laugh the insurance sector is having. We hear of stories of people unable to pay exorbitant premiums as a result of previous claims or risk yet somehow at the slightest chance of upping a premium, they seize it citing other claims in one’s post-code area. Now, to my way of thinking, given the bumbling by the EA and successive previous governments in managing the infrastructure then there should be a bail-out fund to help these poor souls (not the Insurers) in cases where the pariahs of commerce fear to tread. After all, the banks got bailed out and sold down the river, did they not?

I wish all good things to anyone afflicted by these floods and those still to come (as they surely will) for 2016 and beyond. To Cameron and his lot, get out of your wellies, put your thinking caps back on and address the real problems of uplands management,floodplain building and reactionary engineering.