Gary's views

Gary's weekly views

Each week an article by Gary has appeared in the Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge News in South West Devon. The articles are published here

FLOODING

Just a few days ago, I thought my summer project might be to build an ark in my garden. Then the sun broke through once more and my plans have been shelved. As the muddy waters recede in Gloucestershire and people get back to normal, it is worth reflecting on the lessons to be learned.

Is something happening to our weather patterns? Undeniably yes. Climate change is real. It is clear that climate change has been going on, up and down, wet and dry, hot and cold for thousands of years. Rainfall patterns seem particularly violent right now. Is it being caused by mankind’s activity? Because it has always happened, we can only partially answer that with a yes, but pumping out all of those greenhouse gasses in the past one hundred years has to be contributing to global warming. We need to do all we can to address that.

In the meantime what can we do to reduce risk? The first lesson learnt from Gloucester is that we have to be better at protecting infrastructure – water and sewage treatment plants and electricity stations. It is bad enough being flooded out, but being without power or clean water takes it to a different scale.

Secondly we really do have to stop building on flood plains unless the systems put in actually decrease the water run off problem rather than exacerbating it. Perhaps we should also insist on gravel hard standings for cars rather than solid material. Water has got to go somewhere and if we allow everywhere to be plastered with tarmac and concrete, the escape options are dramatically reduced.

Finally, we clearly have to make action on flooding a greater priority for both local and national government. There are only limited resources, but I would like to see money directed away from some of the more fanciful functions performed by our state towards both prevention and action on flooding. We have regular problems in Plympton Plymstock and Ivybridge that would benefit from greater investment.

I also wonder whether, when we have a national emergency, we should have flexibility in our international aid budget to divert some of that cash towards our own people. Don’t get me wrong, I am all for investing wisely in the developing world, but I don’t think we could be criticised for making sure that home base is secure when disaster strikes. Probably get hammered for that idea.

posted by Nigel on Friday, August 03, 2007