UK govt turns down offer to help dealing with the floods from the Netherlands

[LoveSewingBee]

Extensive offer of help from individual Dutch Waterschappen (netherlands has a number of waterschappen (water agencies directly funded by tax payer who have to protect their part of the country through rings of dykes, pumps, sluices, flood plains etc etc)) and the Dutch Ministery of Infrastructure and Environment of extensive practical help and expertise. Practical help in the form of moveable dykes, automated sandbagging machines, more pumps etc etc has all been TURNED DOWN by the UK govt. They have told the Dutch govt they are only interested in expertise.

This is reported in today's Volkskrant on their website.

INCREDIBLE... I would think of all things what is most needed is practical help at the moment.

Utter, utter fuckwits. Seriously. The people with the most expertise in managing water levels, from planning to practical implementation, who deal with this all the time and successfully maintain thousands of acres of land that should be under the sea offer help and we turn them down?

They would rather let parts of the UK languish under flood water than admit they need help.

Arrogant fuckwits.

Have a look at OFWAT before blaming the water companies. They can and have prevented companies from spending money improving infrastructure including sewage management. They've done this to Thames water in the last 5 years. It would be interesting to see exactly what they've blocked.

Breathtakingly stupid. How nice of the Dutch gov to offer this, and of course they are the experts. I think they advised in New Orleans after Katrina.

I am not an engineer, but I still think that the Dutch engineers with their equipment could help to drain flooded areas quicker than otherwise would happen.

Can't remember ever having heard that parts of the Netherlands would be months under water (like some parts in the UK being flooded from before Christmas and still being flooded now).

This is in response to the poster who said that she/he didn't see what difference practical help would make at this stage.

Mind you, it is very stormy here as well. Maybe they are better off keeping all the equipment on standby for here just in case ... although I don't believe they are patrolling the dykes so they must have been thinking that it is not a serious threat at the moment.

Anyway, the Dutch ministery of Infrastructure and Environment and more importantly the Dutch waterschappen have said their offer remains on the table so if the UK government changes its mind they can offer practical help very quickly. Maybe time for some serious people pressure of those affected.

What a humiliation that would be admitting that we needed help from another EU country. There would be a lot of red faces around the cabinet table. This on top of all the other challenges to government policy that the flooding has brought.

If the government truly put the interests of the flooded communities first they would have been asking for Dutch help for Somerset weeks ago.

Translation of last part of Volkskrant article:

Expertise only
The offer of help was made on Sunday, during a meeting with a delegation of Dutch waterworks experts at Downing Street. The delegation was told that only their expertise was welcomed. On Thursday four experts arrived in Bristol. They will be carrying out visual dyke inspections.

In a response, the British Government Department of Infrastructure has thanked the Dutch government for their offer of whom they borrowed 8 water pumps. Also a few Dutch engineers are advising in Somerset.

"The offered equipment is now not necessary, but it doesn't mean that we won't use it in the future", comments a spokesman of the British government department. " "We stay in contact about our needs with the Netherlands and other EU partners"

Mind you, in the Netherlands if they are concerned about the dykes, they don't just carry out visual inspections, they send F16 fighter planes with infrared cameras to photograph the dykes which is then followed up with visual inspection of potential weak points so they can be strengthened straight away. That tends to be head line news.

Nope! I'll still blame the water companies. They should have taken on OFWAT more strenuously. OFWAT are not god, the be all and end all, the very last word. They can and should be challenged. There have been plenty of incidences over the last decade or two that could have been used to open up the debate more widely.

Remember, I live in an area that is regularly flooded... the water authorities round here have done more..... they have had to! Maybe others will now step up and take the responsibilities their ownership of the water supply brings.

OH is a civil engineer, he's the one who thinks the help offered may not be appropriate at this moment in time. He thinks 'we' should be mapping the water, blockages, causes etc, etc and planning to use that help once the water levels have receded to put in place more permanent fixes. He is also certain that pumping water on a huge scale is simply moving the problem on.

Yes, they did go to New Orleans after Katrina to advise (or something....).

I always feel that the Netherlands are so far ahead of us on every aspect of infrastructure, it's embarrassing!

Cycle lanes, canals, wind farms, solar panels and flood defenses all seem to be years ahead of us. I'd love to know how we could move forward to match them?

They showed some pumps in action on the regional news yesterday that had been shipped in from the Netherlands. They were removing something like 20 Olympics swimmong pools full of water ah hour or something equally amazing.

We've clearly accepted some help!

I am a civil engineer and I work for the a Environment Agency in Flood Risk Management (dons logo'ed hard hat). 4 people were sent from my office to assist our southwestern colleagues with Dutch engineers on Wednesday. We also call in Dutch pumps in most big flood events, although it has happened (not this time) that a lorry driver has been refused entry to the uk because of past drugs charges.