Drookit Somerset.

[jaydot]

[PsychoSerenity]

It wouldn't make any sense for major rivers and waterways to be privately owned because of the potential havoc it would cause if any individual land owner were unable to properly maintain their own stretch, or for that matter if they decided to do something like diverting the river in a different direction. Then there's the problem that many of the people who have had land, homes etc flooded, might not live anywhere near the rivers, because with such flat land the flood doesn't stay in one place.

There are any number of ways it might be sorted from dredging and rebuilding the entire area, taxing the local land owners, or just buying them all out and letting it flood. But whatever they decide the government needs to step up and take action. They can't just sit on their arses and pretend it's just weather and not their responsibility.

[JimC]

Dredging is likely to be an environmental disaster for the riverine ecology.

[Clinton Huxley]

Dredging is likely to be an environmental disaster for the riverine ecology.

this is the argument, summarised in the Daily Mail as the Environment Agency being more concerned with voles than with people.

[Svartalf]

I'd be mmore concerned with voles than with english "people"

[Clinton Huxley]

I'd be mmore concerned with voles than with english "people"

to a Frenchman, a vole means two things - sex and dinner.

[Svartalf]

Voles are too small for sex, we need at least foxes for that

[Clinton Huxley]

Voles are too small for sex, we need at least foxes for that

pursuit of a fox renders a Frenchman a hound.

[Svartalf]

better a hound than a poodle.

[pErvinalia]

Rivers are likely a state responsibility regardless of whether your title extends over them. As far as I am aware my title extends to the middle of the river at the bottom of my property, but I can't touch the river in any significant way.

[rainbow]

Shoot the local river for the cheek of flooding?

No, no, no.

Typical socialist thinking.
You just don't get Libertarianism, do you?

[pErvinalia]

What they need to do is dredge the river by shooting it repeatedly.

[Audley Strange]

Its fun watching the governmental twats shifting the blame onto each other right now. Pickles seems to be in a bit of a pickle!

Yeah, but not one of them has said "your fucking land, pay for it yourselves!" or "Its god's punishment for voting Lib-Dem. If you had voted tory we might have acted."

It seems that the main gripe that farmers and landowners have is the lack of river dredging, which the government is (apparently) responsible for.

Granted. Rivers and Fisheries it used to be, no idea what it is now. However as someone from the environment agency pointed out last night, dredging would not have made that much of a difference considering the torrent. So if the rivers had been dredged the lands would still mostly be flooded. The guy also pointed out that for decades now the landowners and farmers have been told to protect their land with better drainage and many if not most haven't bothered.

I have sympathy for those who've lost their homes and goods but I still resent the fact that those who own those lands have been wilfully negligent and expect everyone else to bail them out.

[Audley Strange]

Its fun watching the governmental twats shifting the blame onto each other right now. Pickles seems to be in a bit of a pickle!

Yeah, but not one of them has said "your fucking land, pay for it yourselves!" or "Its god's punishment for voting Lib-Dem. If you had voted tory we might have acted."

It seems that the main gripe that farmers and landowners have is the lack of river dredging, which the government is (apparently) responsible for.

Granted. Rivers and Fisheries it used to be, no idea what it is now. However as someone from the environment agency pointed out last night, dredging would not have made that much of a difference considering the torrent. So if the rivers had been dredged the lands would still mostly be flooded. The guy also pointed out that for decades now the landowners and farmers have been told to protect their land with better drainage and many if not most haven't bothered.

I have sympathy for those who've lost their homes and goods but I still resent the fact that those who own those lands have been wilfully negligent and expect everyone else to bail them out.

[Hermit]

...bail them out.

Let the pun-fest turn into a torrent. Surely, after Audley Strange's valiant start there is a flood of puns to come.