Dredge the Rivers ffs!!!!!!

[finetonive]

We need to go back to dredging rivers REGULARLY.

Those poor people.

DH's late grandfather worked as a milesman (I think that's what they were called?) about 60 - 70 years ago.
He was allocated a mile long stretch of road which was his responsibility. He had to keep all the drains and gullies cleared. He did other council jobs alongside this, but all the workers had their own stretch of road and were proud of how well they were kept.
This was disbanded years ago. The gullies are now overgrown and have filled up with mud over the years, so water had nowhere to go and runs down the roads, the drains are blocked so that certain areas in our village will always flood as there's nowhere for the water to go.

This weather is unexpected, but I think the abandonment of these maintenance jobs hasn't helped with the flooding situation.

More trees would help, but not so much at this time of year, they'd be dormant and not sucking up the water. I am guessing that roots in the soil would help slow run off, though.

I've just been looking at some accounts from York, where they say that it might reach the levels of the 2000 floods.

I think that it is things like building on flood plains that make the biggest difference (and one interviewee I heard didn't seem to understand that doing that doesn't just make those houses at risk, but increases flooding in the whole area as the place where excess water went isn't there any more).

And people have been warning for decades about the effect of putting hard impermeable surfaces (for cars, or just when fashionable) in gardens. The cumulative effect is acres of absorbent earth lost.

Dredging rivers would just destroy ecosystems that have just recovered from Victorian and up to 1950s depradations.

Hang on, surely the answer to dredging causing faster flow is to dredge the populated bits of river first, or those lower down, and then move backwards to the bits higher up/away from the houses?

Then it will flow slowly in the non dredged, non habitated parts and faster (with enough depth) through the towns and villages.

Work backwards.

Or is that very unscientific?

Just this.

apparently rainfall is only up 2% worldwide the issue is it is raining in a different pattern in different areas than it used to so where we built the reservoirs (in areas of high rainfall) it is no longer raining as much

Get the highly subsidised sheep off the uplands and pay farmers to replace with trees and bog instead.
Don't dredge the rivers- the water is running far too fast down from the hills. If it took 2 weeks to reach the towns instead of 24 hours it would stay within the river banks.

My town has had a new pumping station built and a massive flood barrier that rises up from the road when the Clyde explodes its bloody banks. Why hasn't that been done elsewhere? I'm confused as to why it hasn't been done in England. Poor people.

I can see in the future big deep concrete levies, like the ones in America with big storm drains leading to them. The old style drains of years ago, can not cope with the vast amounts of water coming off many thousands of new roofs & paved over gardens. Small town rivers, can not cope with this urban sprawl without big changes.

No I mean, obviously don't dredge high up in the hills. Dredge in the towns and downriver from the towns. Start downriver then work backwards.

We need to stop building on flood plains and stop paving over our front gardens for parking spaces.

Most of the properties flooded on this occasion don't appear to be new properties built on flood plains, they are older properties.

Dredging and flood defences are popular because they are visible and immediate responses to flooding, but the most effective way of mitigating flood risk is upstream - ensuring that water flows less quickly off the hills where most rain falls. That means changing farming practices and discouraging the removal of vegetation, which helps increase the capacity of the land to store excess water. Unfortunately current agricultural and environmental policies (both UK government policy, and European policy via the CAP) discourage this.

Presumably building on flood plains will mean the water has to go somewhere else and therefore affects older properties?

And maintaining existing drainage would help too, though not really a significant factor in the current floods. My mother's house (rural cottage at least 200 years old) has flooded twice in recent years, not because of rivers breaking their banks, but because of poor maintenance of local drainage channels.

stop building on flood plains they are there for a reason

We don't build on flood plains. This is the current planning advice

planningguidance.communities.gov.uk/blog/guidance/flood-risk-and-coastal-change/

My Dad has always maintained the drains near his house - jetted/done the thing with the long sticks, and made sure that it's clear all the way from the house, under the road, and under the house opposite and draining into the stream at the back, as it should - just because the last thing he wants for him and his elderly neighbours is flooding.

The council sent people to jet the street drains recently, he popped out to have a chat and mention that they needed to drain to the back stream, and the fact that the water was actually jetting back out of a drain further up the road suggested that it was blocked. The bloke doing it didn't care - his job was only to jet the street drains, not to make sure that the drain that actually took the water away was clear (it seems that's no-one's job at all)

I've seen this attitude in lots of places - people are only contracted to do one small part of a job, and don't care that (for instance) if they don't clear away their grass cuttings then they block the drains. Bring back people with full responsibility like PhilPhil's DH's Grandfather - people who know that if they miss one bit, they'll pay for it later with more work, rather than people who feel no effect at all because it's some other poor sod who'll have to do it.

As others have said it is obvious that if you build on the flood plains, (clam's pic is spot on), if you abandon maintenance of gutters and gullies, if you uproot trees and concrete over gardens and increase housebuilding and population quickly - THERE WILL BE FLOODS.

It suits Big Business to have more people, more building. The small man is encouraged by telling him it is his right to do what he wishes with his land and fuck everyone else, the cries of racist and the verbal lynching of people who protest about population and immigration play into the hands of those who benefit from it, (not the average poor guy and not those whose homes are flooded) and prevent any sensible discussion of it.

These floods hugely benefit business - think of all the stuff that has to be be replaced - huge increase in sales. Bigger profits for sellers of fridges and sofas and carpets.

It is so obvious - if you fill your colander with water and then "tarmac" over all the hole - what happens when you run the tap?!

So sorry for anyone caught up in this - heartbreaking. Certainly makes you rethink property ownership.

When public services suffer massive cuts stuff just won't get done and there will be consequences. Still, if we get to pay a bit less tax it's worth it isn't it? (I'm being sarcastic with the last bit).

These floods hugely benefit business - think of all the stuff that has to be be replaced - huge increase in sales. Bigger profits for sellers of fridges and sofas and carpets.

Yes, it is a Capitalist's dream.

The planning advice is ignored. My neighbour - and we live in a flood risk area metres from a river overflow - has built over more than 75% of his garden. He has built a three bedroom house - against planning advice with specific mention of flooding - but any attempt at enforcement has just been ignored. The Council don't care and have not got the resources to do anything about it. Everyone in our street has paved their garden and the street now floods (up to 6 inches deep) on a regular basis.

My other neighbour fought - and I was at the meeting - to be allowed to build a HUGE extension with basement. The "flood risk" was a major factor BUT the decision was that as long as the basement was not used for sleeping and therefore life might be endangered the basement and massive extension doubling the footprint of the house could go ahead. Flood risk for anyone else was not considered.

A 3-bed house without planning permission? Wow! How stupid.

If you visit the hilly sheep farming areas in this part of the world, where there has been a centuries long prob with flooding in the local town, you will see a herringbone effect on the hillsides due to the farmers draining boggy ground. Boggy ground is no use for anything, except storing water, so the Gov gives them grants to drain them.

The upshot is that the water rushes off the hills into the streams and rivers, flooding further downstream.

The other prob is the rain. I lived here when I was younger, I particularly remember the weather as having to get out and about with baby and toddler in rainsoaked buggies was a regular thing. But the rain was misty and drizzly - NOT the torrential downpours we get now, except a few times a year. The weather has changed therefore much of the probs couldn't have been foreseen.

But is how it is done. First you extend the back of the garage - permitted development. (But you go out a "bit" further - and no-one checks or will investigate). Then you add a "conservatory" - planning is given for that. (Easy to fight to be allowed that). Then you convert it to a two bed flat, (without planning but when neighbours complain you can get retrospective planning permission for change of use). Then you add a second storey - essentially a"loft" for storage and insulation. Make it of "Eco Friendly" materials - a "green roof" etc. A year later you ask for planning to do a loft conversion - for a small loft room. Not given but it would be hard for Council to fight this as "Loft conversions" are generally approved and there is a "housing shortage". You build a bigger room than you applied to build and a bathroom but call it a study. Complaints about "breach of planning" are "investigated" - ie someone pops round to "talk with the developer" - but no-one can be arsed to do anything.

Bingo - a three bedroom, two bathroom house in your back garden - complete with a drive for parking and access! None of which had any real planning.