Britain’s floods: We can save the town or the country, but not both, says Environment Agency boss
I am afraid this sort of response is not good enough. It feels tired and unimaginative. David Cameron is now taking personal responsibility for sorting this out! I suspect this part of the problem wont be solved any time soon though!! This article tells us:
As severe flooding continues to wreak havoc across the country, Britain must decide whether to protect “town or country” because it is too costly to safeguard both, the chairman of the Environment Agency has said.
Lord Chris Smith said “difficult choices” lie ahead because “there’s no bottomless purse” to pay for flood defences.
Writing in the Daily Telegraph, Lord Smith acknowledged the “extraordinary combination of weather conditions over the past eight weeks” and defended the EA after a week in which it has come in for heavy criticism over its handling of the crisis.
In the Somerset Levels, large swathes of land have been underwater for more than a month. But Lord Smith emphasised that the situation has been much worse in previous years.
Drawing comparisons with similar floods in 1953, he said that, while the conditions in Somerset have caused “terrible distress for the 40 homeowners who have been flooded”, there has not been the “tragic loss of life” seen more than 60 years ago when 300 people died.