Environment Agency Blamed For Catastrophic Flooding At Wainfleet, Lincolnshire, Not Badgers

This isn’t quite being said out loud at present, it’s only being hinted at. But it looks like we could have the Environment Agency itself to blame for that catastrophic flooding at Wainfleet in Lincolnshire. As with their insistence that the Somerset Levels shouldn’t have been drained in the first place so why not let them flood back to marshland?

The actual story being told is their nonsense with badger setts.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] Badgers burrowing into river banks in Lincolnshire has been blamed for the catastrophic flooding which saw hundreds of people evacuated. Occupants of at least 590 properties in and around Wainfleet were forced from their homes this week after more than two months’ worth of rain fell in just two days. Residents believe badgers have been damaging the town’s flood defences by building their setts on the banks of the River Steeping, which burst on Wednesday. The Environment Agency (EA) had spent more than £300,000 on a project to lure the creatures out of Wainfleet, building new setts with the aim of enticing them in and removing them. But the badgers reportedly refused to move into the purpose-built setts – boasting toilet areas, sleeping space and a communal area – because they were too damp. [/perfectpullquote]

Think about this for a moment, £300k will feed 10 NHS Angels for a year. The EA pisses that amount of money away on new housing for badgers which they adamantly refuse to use. This then leading to flooding which would have been avoided if they’d just spent the 50 pence on cyanide to gas them with in the first place.

This is what happens when we hand over to technocratic management who then pursue their own, not our, goals.

But the real point is this:

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””] The EA has now come under fire for the project, as well as failing to dredge the river,
…
“The flooding is caused by a combination of factors but councillors have been telling the EA to get the river dredged for years and nothing was done about it – nothing has ever been done. “You can’t get four feet of water in a two feet-high bank.” [/perfectpullquote]

With only a little bit of hyperbole added this area would be the North Sea if it weren’t for flood defences which prevent it being the North Sea.

[perfectpullquote align=”full” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]The River Lymn is a river in Lincolnshire, England. It rises in the Wolds on the eastern slope of Castcliffe Hill in Fulletby parish. It flows south-eastwards to the Lincolnshire Marsh, where it becomes known as the Steeping River on the boundary of Great Steeping parish. The main channel is supplemented by the Wainfleet Relief Channel as it passes Wainfleet All Saints, and the relief channel is joined by the old course of the Lymn. Once the two channels rejoin, there are three flood defence structures to protect the region from flooding by the North Sea.[/perfectpullquote]

If you don’t dredge such relief channels – as the EA has adamantly refused to do in the Somerset Levels – then the flooding the relief channels were built to avoid will happen.

It is the Environment Agency’s declared policy that certain of such areas should return to being the marshland they were. Which is why we do get this flooding, because we’ve handed over that technocratic power to the anal retentives from the centre rather than drainage boards being run by those who actually want drainage – the locals.

The Carthaginian solution presents itself as being worthwhile here and we’d better do it quickly as once the North Sea comes back in there’s no point – nor ability – to ploughing with salt, is there?