To be fed up with floods and think it's climate change?

[malificent7]

Live and work in Somerset. Can't get home due to floods. This is the 3rd time in 2 months that the commute has been dangerous. Aibu to think that this is climate change and to be scared and pissed off about it? Yes...i am a contributor to the oroblem. I know.

@JubileeJumps Huge parts of Florida are, famously, a swamp. It's also been enormously overdeveloped. If people are going to build on a swamp, it's not surprising they can't get insurance. Places like Florida need to think very carefully about their climate change adaptation planning, which is likely going to have to accept that current areas in use for housing and commercial use will have to be lost.

It doesn't help that the water simply has nowhere to go. I live in a town that has had 7 massive housing developments put up in the past 5 years. All in all, around 1500 new homes and the roads that go with it has decimated the trees, grasses and plants that used to soak up the majority of the water. Everyone is shocked that these houses are now surrounded by giant puddles that don't seem to shifting, but where else are they meant to go 🙄

According to the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology UK autumn rainfall between September and November was 22% above average and in some areas December was 70% above average.
January is starting in the same vein. So we are having a very wet winter falling on ground with a very limited capacity to store any more.

Councils absolutely do receive funding from central Government - the provisional settlement for 24/25 was published in December. And they can increase council tax by an extra 2% a year (on top of the 3% referendum limit) purely for social care costs.

Sorry link here www.gov.uk/government/collections/provisional-local-government-finance-settlement-england-2024-to-2025

The Tories have cut council funding by huge percentages - over 40% in real terms since 2010.

Yes, climate changes whether we contribute to it or not. However, we are certainly contributing to it, and speeding it up in a way that's already causing problems.

That wasn't the comment I was responding to @LightSwerve . A poster above claimed that local councils don't get central Government funding - they do. And I've posted the link to confirm it.

Really odd why people are so happy making bold claims that aren't just wrong but are easily to confirm through Google!

Yes local government funding from the central allocation has been reduced over a number of years. But their core spending power (ie total funding including council tax in one) hasn't been cut by 40% in real terms over that period.

The main issue with council funding is the huge increase in the costs of social care and the numbers of people needing it. We need as a county to have an urgent solution to that otherwise councils are going to be sustainable.

But their core spending power (ie total funding including council tax in one) hasn't been cut by 40% in real terms over that period.

Spending pressure/proximity to bankruptcy varies massively council to council, but what we can say with absolute certainty is the Tories have in 13 years almost destroyed local government by cutting their grants whilst doing fuck all about the social care crisis, and have transferred an increasing council tax burden to us all as an added insult.

I agree with this ^^

The garage down the road from us has flooded three times over the last few weeks a) because we have had the second wettest December since records began and the wettest autumn since records began, and b) The new owners haven't been clearing the culvert that runs underneath the forecourt.

The number of people who have fake grass in their back gardens or pave them over, the number of houses built on flood plains - Catcliffe in Sheffield is a good example, and the lack of dredging and keeping drains and other waterways clear have all contributed.

On to climate change - more people using their own vehicles to commute and go to places because public transport is dire. It's all so depressing.

It’s going to be interesting when pp expect Labour will make these issues go away

I suspect that cuts in road maintenance are part of the problem, too. The council used to clear the gullies on our rural roads twice a year, they've reduced it to once now. More rainfall and a reduction in the amount of drainage will inevitably lead to flooding.

Also more building. Fields soak up a fair amount of water. When you build houses, roads and business parks on them, the volume that can be absorbed is massively reduced.

Of course, this wouldn't matter if it wasn't so fucking wet, and I'm sure that's due to climate change. Autumns just seem to be wet now, the cold, frosty autumn mornings of my (1960s) childhood seem to be a thing of the past.

A huge flood defence scheme was built in Worcester about 15yrs ago. Businesses and commuters were all delighted that the main bridge would remain open even with the highest flood levels. Unfortunately some duck head got the calculations wrong and it ended up 2-3cm lower than designed, so the main roads still flood. Then they came up with the idea of raising the road which took 18mnths of traffic disruption.
For the actual amount of time the roads are closed it really wasn’t worth the disruption. It would have been far better to put in a new bridge at a point where the access road wouldn’t flood. For anyone who knows the area they actually did build a flood proof bridge but it was single carriageway. They recently completed a scheme to make it dual carriageway. Never has the phrase “do it well do it once” been more apt for Worcester Council.
Living in an area that floods regularly and has done for centuries, we haven’t managed to beat the record floods of the last century yet.
There is no denying that global warming is a thing but flooding will always be a problem if you live near a river or the sea. Water is a powerful beast and should always be given the greatest respect.

There's much more water than there used to be.

Although much less water than there used to be which might be happening in other countries doesn’t sound great either

Well we’ve definitely had way more rain than usual here, it’s been insane the last week but tbh it’s been so much wetter than usual here since September. And that’s possibly climate change. However, a few months back (when it was still dryish) me and DH drove down a main route in to our nearest city and for long stretch every single drain at the side of the road had weeds growing out of them - some had quite large buddleias! I commented then I wonder if they were going to be cleared before winter - they weren’t. And another issue, I live rurally but right on the edge of the rural boundary with the coast one side and the encroaching town the other. Building is ever moving towards us and the latest huge housing estate has been built on what used to be an extensive golf course that meandered through an area of marshland. When it was a golf course they left the natural marsh drains where they naturally occurred. Now it’s been built over and they have attempted to move the drains and create manmade marsh drains at the edges of the housing estate. Nature doesn’t work that way though and so it’s unsurprising it’s flooding the roads and gardens 🤷‍♀️

There's the added complication that it rained pretty consistently for over month so land that would have absorbed the rain is water logged.

Have you been living under a rock?
We have had the wettest year since records began where I live.
The fields are so sodden that there is nowhere for the water to go.

Op of course it’s climate change, the world’s climate has changed for centuries. From ice ages on, it’s a natural phenomenon that has always, always occurred.

im always surprised when people ask is it climate change, like something weird and nefarious is going on, its really common knowledge the worlds climate changes, we study it at school , everyone knows for example about the ice ages, or how land masses have split apart, how it does this.

Because I used to work for the finance dept. of a District Council and back in 2019 (or early 2020), the Chief Exec informed us in an all-staff meeting that this was the first year we would receive no funding from central government. Apparently councils were now supposed to be “self-funding”. In fact, he said we’d actually had to pay central government a fee of about £100,000 for some service or other.

I admit that when I posted, it didn’t occur to me that County Councils and Unitaries might still receive some funding. My mistake. It’s nowhere near enough, though.

We now have a Unitary Council and Social Care takes up almost 2/3 of the Council’s budget, That’s huge. Needless to say, the Council has had to cut other services, but they aren’t allowed to simply transfer savings made within one budget to another budget.

Anyway, my main point is that councils often get blamed for problems which are actually the fault of central government. And I have no doubt that this is exactly how our current government likes it.

Because of cuts in the central government grant to local councils, and little room for cuts in the 2 biggest spending services (education and adult social care). The smaller services where there is more discretion re spending are therefore the first to get cut, and highway maintenance is one of them.

Is all the radiation emitted by 3G, 4G and 5G (in which the whole of the U.K. is currently bathed) not in any way contributing to climate change?

It is not.

Weather here has been so disruptive - windy, rainy, windy and rainy, and on and on.
Lots of boats been cancelled, which disrupts people and goods getting off the land, flooded fields, surface water on roads.....

Just heard on the news that some areas have already had 60% of their average January rainfall - it is only 5th!

LMAO at the idea there is no more wanter than usual

No, it’s about blocked drains actually. And building on flood plains.

This.
Basic road/drain maintenance/clearance by our local authority has really suffered over the years, not to mention when relaying new tarmac the contractors don't have the basic knowledge to know that coving the drains with the stuff shouldn't be part of the job.

Also agree re floodplains, it's pretty obvious that houses should never have been built on areas that are know to flood, but still they do.