Shropshire Farming Talk: The challenges of flooding

I had thought about it but had almost decided that I was becoming too much like King Canute, futilely trying to turn the tide, in this case, of opinion against dredging.

Then I thought perhaps my stubbornness was only matched by the Environment Agency rejecting any consideration of copying nature’s way of clearing blocked up waterways.

But, as the flooding has become an event of Biblical proportion, perhaps David and Goliath would be a more suitable comparison, though I haven’t been as successful – so far!

I first wrote about floods ten years ago, with quite a few since and, in it, I quoted from an article in the Farmers Weekly which asked “Shouldn’t they admit fault and dredge the rivers?” because there seemed to be a case for managing the floods rather than just containing them.

So I looked at dredging policies around the country, and it seems it does happen.

The Port of London Authority does “maintenance dredging at ebb tides to counteract shallowing of depths”.

NFU Scotland’s President is calling for “rethinking so that active sediment management can better protect fields and buildings”.

In Cornwall on the Fal, Tamar and Looe, dredging techniques are employed to make them deeper and The Scottish Rivers Authority has a spectacular flow chart (sorry!) detailing where and how dredging can be done.

The Welsh Canal and Rivers Trust use techniques to “remove obstacles and silt to maintain the flows and to protect bridges and embankments”, as they are now doing on the Montgomery Canal. Isn’t that dredging?

If dredging or de-silting happens in these places for these reasons, why doesn’t it on the Severn? The Environment Agency (EA) is determinedly against it.

We have just witnessed the PO Scandal which resulted from one person refusing to look at the facts and admit they were wrong, and getting away with it for years.

Could this be a similar situation? Has someone in the EA decided that they are against dredging and is immovable?

Millions of pounds are being spent by Government and Authorities desperate to find a solution to the devastation of flooding – could they be wrong in the way they’re spending it? Daniel Kawczynski is doing a stalwart job getting this funding, but does he know or think it’s the best way to spend it or is he just jumping through hoops to get as much as possible?

Rosemary Allen, Retired Farmer from Cockshutt near Ellesmere