Originally posted @ 8:09 am, Tue 23rd Sep 2008
Attended a briefing on flooding by Phil Woolas at one of the fringe meetings.
I'm writing up my notes, but they're a bit rough.
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The country faces 2 main problems - climate change and updating the high quality Victorian water and water infrastructure. .
Climate change is happening and bringing about a need to handle different types of floods. Extreme examples of rain, like the 4 inches of rain in 2 hours that flooded Morpeth means we need new measures.
The second is that the Victorians were arguably too good. The highest of quality for managing water and waste to improve public health.
So problems with climate change comes just at the time when the infrastructure built by the Victorians is starting to fail. So there was a build up in size of maintenance programme now needed, especially given a hard-up country of the forties and fifties couldn't afford to do anything. The annual budget has increased from £350 million to £800 million.
Collapses in sewage systems started to become more common around 15 years ago.
And we've got quite an expensive way of supplying water. It's one system through which we pump filtered clean drinking water that can often be used for cleaning cars etc.
So what are the principles by which the response is being developed -
1. get the science right;
2. map everything; (the location of all drains are not known; and further clarity is needed on ownership);
3. plan for the change expected in the UK climate;
4. be able to help people maintain their insurance cover; (in many countries, people can't get insurance cover for flooding);
5. beware of simple cost-benefit analysis in deciding where to do protection next, since that can lead to unfairness for many people;
6. that the Environment Agency should ensure there is a plan for flooding to cover all areas;
7. that councils write the flooding plan for each area;
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