the world has gone mad

[renewablejohn]

I don't have a horse in this race but thought I would look up the points being raised on other forums.

A picture here

some minutes from a meeting (not sure about the voracity of these but I am not reading all 169 pages ) can be found here

Anyway, guess people need to make up their own minds

Further pictures on the same forum at thread number 3151 and 3107. The picture on the bridge looking down at the arches 3107 gives a clear message as to how much the silt has been removed as the archway upto the first parapet was blocked resulting in the flooding. Clearly the river has now full use of that blocked archway.

[Mr Gus]

He is monied enough to challenge them on numerous counts clearly, I guess he's launching a barrister at the EA then to clear his name, charge them for work etc?

[MoSTiE]

dont remember there being an outrage over this

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/0 ... y-flanked/

[Fintray]

dont remember there being an outrage over this

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/0 ... y-flanked/

Going by the article it seems many in Plymouth were well pissed off by this, the elected officials again doing what they want rather than what their electorate want, they seem to forget who they work for!

[Bugtownboy]

dont remember there being an outrage over this

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/0 ... y-flanked/

Oh, but there was. Again, it was the arrogance and entitlement of the action.

There’s a long way to go with the outcome of the councils actions.

[Mr Gus]

Yes, my own little kiddo has sent a missive to the council calling them complete unts, I told her as it was reported to be happening, she went down there & was appalled, not the best language for an english student to say, however it fits the context as to their actions, "because surely only -unts pull off a move like that dad, sheffield all over again, I hope someone burns them out of their offices"

[renewablejohn]

But you should realise any council is beyond the law. I have an ongoing battle with Blackburn with Darwen council for illegally felling one of my woodland grant scheme trees without permission when they installed a kissing gate in the next door farmers field. Their excuse is that its on the highway it is not. Its a public footpath with the ancient stone stile still in situ but threatened to be removed by the council, the illegal felling of the tree being the first step in its removal.

[Bugtownboy]

I believe money has already been raised for a judicial review of the council’s actions, in particular, the council leader.

He has resigned.

Think this might have legs, particularly if one individual is shown to have acted outside his legal authority.

[AE-NMidlands]

Take a look at the current pictures and you will see the landscape has recovered and the river is doing what it is supposed to do. If the press want a job then investigate and report the raw sewage going down the rivers from the various water companies. Or highlight the failings of the EA not to carry out drainage work or even when they do have a go at draining they get it so badly wrong that they remove the clay puddle lining keeping the water in the drainage channel.

I think this debate illustrates the tension between the way we all thought from the agricultural revolution up to the end of the last last century (when water had to be removed from land to increase its "fertility" and output) and the view gaining ground now. No worries about biodiversity or downstream flooding back then.
It is coming to be accepted that, while a straightened, deepened river channel might result in less marshy ground around a river and dryer fields, it actually has significant downsides.
I was delighted to see https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-65163975 ("Salmon are breeding in a Cumbrian beck after its course was rewiggled.)
"Swindale Beck on the eastern edge of the Lake District was straightened in the 1800s to increase land for farming. But it resulted in water moving too quickly, scouring away the gravel banks needed by fish to lay their eggs. A project started in 2016 between the RSPB and United Utilities to return the Haweswater watercourse to its natural route has seen the return of Atlantic salmon, with 20 recently counted." And by complete coincidence I have just found this too: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-65341994 about the same project.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ca-uk-land has an interesting couple of paragraphs:

Compare this record with policy in the UK, which, 37 years after Umaña set to work, is still pissing about with half-solutions and non-solutions, held to ransom by rich and powerful property owners and entirely incapable of making strategic environmental decisions, especially on land use. While Costa Rica’s wildlife is booming, ours is in freefall. The government seems determined, against all advice, to allow this disastrous trend to continue for the rest of the decade...
So why does a rich, powerful nation fail, while a small, much poorer one succeeds? Talking to Umaña and researching the history of this transformation suggests a simple answer: quality of government. When governments are committed, decisive and consistent, things happen. When they are beholden to lobby groups, cronyism and corruption, and delegate responsibility to an abstraction called “the market”, they spend decades flapping their hands while chaos reigns.

[Mr Gus]

If you are stupid enough to sign up (sheffield) to a PFI contract for tree "maintainence" then the writing is on the wall (of the building seeking retrospective planning permission)