EDITOR’S COMMENT
Prevention is better than cure S
peaking at WWT’s round table on water regulation on 28 October, Conservative MP Anne McIntosh, who is chair of the All Party Parliamentary Water Group, urged the Government “to roll out what is in the 2010
Flood & Water Management Act as a matter of urgency,” (full transcript available at
web4water.com). Her reason being that floods and tides wait for no man.
And barely were her words in print than Cornwall was again hit by devastating flooding on 17 November. The town of Lothwithiel this time was deluged after 40mm of rain fell in less than an hour. Roads, rail, bridges, schools and businesses were shut, residents evacuated, and overland access to the whole region made all but impossible. The event again brought to the attention of the wider public just how vulnerable the UK’s critical infrastructure is to extreme weather and flooding, and therefore to the impact of increasing climatic variability. Alongside the pictures from Prime Minister David Cameron’s tour of the stricken region, the mainstream media deliberated on the folly of hefty cuts to Defra’s flooding budget at a time when it should surely be expanded. As householders and businesses sought to salvage what they could, political self-preservation was inevitably the priority of Downing Street, which seemed confused about whether a cut from £2.3B to £2.1B did or did not constitute a cut. Overall, Defra’s budget is being cut by 28%.
Flood expert David Balmforth of consultancy MWH said: “The situation in Cornwall is another reminder of how ill-prepared we are to deal with the increased risk of flooding in the future. We need to urgently make our communities more flood resilient, adopting a preventative approach rather than the traditional and unsustainable ‘defend at all odds’ approach.” Balmforth urged “innovative thinking” and “low cost solutions” in light of the cuts to Defra’s budget. But how far can the imagination and the wallet be stretched?
Flood prevention is the low-cost solution. The cost of emergency repairs to critical infrastructure, reinstating damaged property and, as happened in Cumbria at the beginning of the year, loss of life, make underinvestment the most costly choice for all stakeholders. A-stitch-in-time should underpin any flood prevention strategy and many, many stitches of all types will be required. Flooding is predicted to become more frequent and one-in-six homes is already at risk. In the last few years, villages, towns and cities across regions as diverse as Gloucestershire, Yorkshire, Cumbria, Oxfordshire, Cornwall, Wales and the Borders have been deeply affected. The Government is seeking to define flooding as a local problem with local solutions – and that is fine as far as the engineering, warning systems and defences go. But with financing and policy – it has to be centrally driven and on a national scale. nnn
Natasha Wiseman, editor Have your say, email
natasha.wiseman@fav-house.com
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December 2010 Water & Wastewater Treatment
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