25 March 2016
Like many of our local communities the Yorkshire town of Pickering is prone to floods. Over Christmas Pickering received 2 inches of rain in 24 hours, which in the past would have been enough to flood the town. Pickering did not flood. Why?
Denied funding for conventional "beating nature" concrete protection Pickering looked at "slowing the flow" - a way of working with nature as a solution to its problems. In addition to the known benefits of upland tree planting, allowing peat bogs to act as a sponge etc, they built 167 "leaky dams" in local becks & drains, planted 71 acres of woodland & built a large bund - modelled on one used by local monks centuries ago - to store & gradually release excess water. All this at a fraction of the cost of what conventional wisdom had deemed too expensive.
It is good that the likes of environment secretary Liz Truss & floods minister Rory Stewart are - be it late in the day - coming to the conclusion that working with nature not trying to beat it is the way forward.
As the Green Party has been warning for years the type of "extreme" weather we witnessed in December will, as global warming continues, become more & more regular. It is therefore essential that we not only act to stop global warming but that we work to mitigate against its effects. Cumbria Flood Partnership are apparently working to find natural ways to use these and other methods to achieve desirable results.
Of course in some areas conventional flood defences will also be required. Cutting spending not only on flood defence schemes but also for research into improving warning and defence, as the government has been doing since 2010, is counterproductive madness.
In addition if we leave the EU then the UK would no longer be bound by directives that drive conservation and that would lead to more intensive agriculture, making the problem worse. One, but certainly not the only, reason the Green Party supports remaining in the EU.
To conclude:-
• climate change is happening
• extreme weather events will become more frequent
• we need to mitigate against their effects
• working with nature is cheaper and more effective that trying to beat it.
Flic Crowley & Geoff Smith
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