Flood defences V Bridge to NI

[StoneofDestiny]

AIBU to think flood defences should be secured across the UK before a £20 Billion pound bridge to NI should even be thought about.

YANBU - flood defences should get priority
YABU - bridge should be prioritised

The UK has left the EU. With that comes a real problem on the island of Ireland. Making a bridge between GB and NI does not solve that problem.

Or, if both are worthwhile, we could do both.

Some very wealthy people will need to pay a bit more in tax.

The bridge will never happen. Boris will spaff millions on "consultants" who will eventually tell him it can't be done, same as he did in London.

The bridge isn't a real thing, it's a silly story to distract the masses from other more important but less tabloid-worthy things that are going on like Brexit shit, funding cuts, HS2

The proposed bridge is utterly pointless and practically unbuildable. The sea there is very, very deep, very rough, very windy and full of munitions dumped after the Second World War. Apart from the technical feasibility, think about how often the Severn Bridge us closed due to high winds, then multiply that, then think about the number of people who actually live in that part of Scotland... It’s not going to happen.

I live in a town that floods, we have flood defences but the water levels keep getting higher and the flooding gets more frequent, the water finds ways to come up through basements and drains. There comes a time when you can't just keep throwing money at it and have to admit defeat by nature.
People keep buying cheap houses that flood, that they can't insure, and then complaining when it happens.
We shouldn't keep building on flood plains or near places that historically flood.

I think the bridge is a great idea. If Boris gets his skates on, it could be about halfway built just at the point Ireland reunites. Then it could be a Brexit- inspired art installation.

Flood mitigation should be a higher priority than either

• planting trees on uplands
• banning drains on peat bogs
• banning drains on grouse moors
• banning new housing on flood plains
• banning impermeable drives
• forcing all new developments to incorporate proper drainage

but none of those give ministers photo opportunities to wear a hard had

Flooding is largely man-made and we need to stop it, as PP said, by letting the flood pains do their jobs rather than building defenses that just move the problem elsewhere.

The bridge is ridiculous, what would be the point of directing all the current ferry traffic through a remote part of Scotland. Would it even save any time?

Flooding is largely man-made and we need to stop it
There we will have to fundamentally disagree.

Rivers have floodplains once the land below them levels out.
Any river in a variable climate will flood.
The Nile and the Mississippi and the Ganges and the Amazon flooded long before there was human presence in their catchments.

What has changed is that people have built on floodplains and cut down all of the trees
(the whole Mediterranean basin should be forested but people and their herbivores prevent it)

Combined with Climate change heating up the atmosphere, flooding will only get worse.
We cannot prevent it
But we can mitigate against the severity of peak flows in built up areas.

And stop compounding our errors year on year

Yes, OK Listening, flooding as a problem is largely man-made. There are large areas where nature deals with flooding itself if only we let it.

I assumed the bridge was just Boris attempting to game the Google results for 'Boris Bridge'. This was if you Google it, you get pages of Boris's never happening NI Bridge plan, and not pages of exactly how much he wasted on the Garden Bridge project that never went ahead!

Same with him rambling about his hobby being painting model buses . Since when? Oh, since he wanted to get his bus covered in lies away from the top of the Google results for 'Boris Bus'.

Listeningquietly Not sure I understand your post. You say "Flood mitigation should be a higher priority than either" and then list 6 ways of mitigating flooding.

Or are you saying "Flood mitigation should be a higher priority than either flood defences or a bridge to NI"? In which case I totally agree with you.

Mere
The Bridge is an oh look a squirrel distraction

Flood defences - like the Boston Barrier and higher sea walls deal with the symptom not the cause.

It is entirely possible to manage watersheds and catchments to reduce peak flows
but there is no political will

Even the Calder valley defences are not dealing with the fact that up on the watershed the landowners get DeFRA grants to dig drains into the bogs to increase the peak flow
joined up thinking

But sadly things like HS2 are more fun for ministers than dealing with the real issues

let alone Climate Change

I think the bridge is a vanity project and not needed. It will however drag countless millions into engineer fees, ministerial time and other scoping out exercises.
Meanwhile people are getting flooded out and need defending.
Yes - we need to change the way we live - but flooding is a current and immediate problem and happening to people in old settlements like Hebden Bridge, York and parts of Worcestershire to name a few.

As for HS2 - another non essential project. Ordinary people would use trains more if they could be relied upon, had local stations (many that were previously closed down) and has fare prices that were affordable. (and train lines that didn’t get flooded!)

Hebden should not be flooding - see my comment about the Calder valley catchment.

York always floods - the Lowther Pub (in all the regular pictures) reopens the day after the water goes back down

Hereford and Worcester - its newer built up areas that are flooding

this website is interesting riverlevels.uk/ as it includes historic data
I'm a bit of a river catchment geek in case you'd not guessed

The Garden Bridge Trust formally announced on 14 August 2017 that it would be ending the project and that the Garden Bridge Trust itself would be wound up in accordance with the Companies Acts. The failed project cost £53m, including £43m of public money

I am pretty sure Dominic would tell you that flood waters need to earn over 23k/per annum to stay in Britain.
That said if the weather continues as it is and there are no investments in flood defences, UK won’t need Brexit to be truly fucked, climate change will take care of it.

The bridge idea is nonsense, an empty gesture to appease the DUP after humiliating them over Brexit. I live in NI & it's not a realistic priority for anyone here outside a very small group of people now shitting themselves at the prospect of a united Ireland. Ironically now on the table for the first time in 100 years because of Brexit.

I think it would be a good step toward a united independent country of NI and Scotland
I find the Irish Sea very rough at times, and don't enjoy the ferry, however I can't imagine how breezy it would be on a bridge over it. The new bridge over the Forth in Edinburgh was shut this week due to ice; the old one used to close regularly due to wind.
I assume it would be a toll bridge?

By the time the bridge could be built, there will be a united Ireland. Scotland will eventually leave the UK but it take longer. I'm sure those two EU countries will be very grateful for that expensive bridge to be joining them. Very generous of England to built it for them.

Now that we're not in the EU we can go back to dredging our rivers? always worked in the past.

The bridge is patently ridiculous.

However it seems increasingly clear that in some areas flood defences are merely throwing good money after bad.

As King Canute proved, you cannot hold back water, it always finds a way. We may as well spend the millions wasted on pointless flood defences to build a bridge between Scotland and Ireland.