Victor: Low on the agenda

I REALLY cannot see the Canal & River Trust appeal for funds to pay for any flood damage to its canals being high on people's agenda.

I cannot imagine many giving to a fund for damage to the waterways, though some may do for a particular item, but I would think it would have to be something to the public's advantage, such as a well used cycle track that has been washed away.

The appeal for cash for the breached Trent & Mersey Canal at Dutton (pictured) was a dismal failure, only having reached a mere 1% of its target (Breach appeal scrapped) and was quietly dropped from the appeal page.

Perhaps now that it is considered to be a charity, the Trust hopes for better things, but somehow I believe it will be unlucky.

Wrong people

The Trust's Vince Moran is appealing by email to boaters to give £25 to the appeal, remarking that it has lost 500 miles of canal in the last 500 years, though that statement I cannot understand.

As us boaters are already fleeced to a very high degree, I would have thought we would be the last to appeal to for cash.  The local councils who like to promote the canals in their areas, but give nothing, the many people living by the canals who enjoy them, who give nothing, the walkers who use the towpaths who give nothing and of course the Lycra Louts who certainly give nothing would surely be the ones to target. (The picture by Roger Fox at Kingston on Thames tells it all.)

At least

At least the Trust will get something from its bed partner the IWA, and I see the more independent one, NABO, has already forked out a few hundred quid.

Now what about all those useless Waterway Partnerships?  Here's their chance to show if they really care....

But...

But, is this appeal a good idea, or have those at CaRT rushed in once again with little thought?

The government has pledged millions of pounds to repair flood damage, so surely damage to the canals would have qualified, but now that the Trust has started its own appeal, it will only encourage the government to exclude CaRT from whatever funding is available.

I can't see the EA launching an appeal any time soon, it has much wiser bods in charge...

To blame

I should imagine that we all know that the Environment Agency is to blame for the flooding of the Somerset Levels, through not dredging the Parrett that acted as its main drain.

But did you know that some of it's dredging machines had been sold off as scrap and others are just rusting away, and it was way back in 2005 that it was last dredged? With the consequence that it has been told that the Parrett can now only carry 60% of its capacity.

Thames

The Environment Agency had this brilliant idea of building what it called the Jubilee River on the Thames, to take the overflow from the river and so alleviate flooding to areas in and around the towns of Maidenhead, Windsor and Eton, but despite protestations from residents of Datchet and Wraysbury that it would merely move flooding downstream from Maidenhead. it went ahead.

Geoff Low tells me the Jubilee was built as a consequence of 4,000 houses being built on the floodplain in Maidenhead, pure and simple, and the Wraysbury residents are now being proved right, for like Datchet it is now under water.

There was a public enquiry before the Jubilee River was built, but for every person who spoke against the scheme, the Agency fielded 10 in opposition, so it was obviously built, but will there now be an enquiry?  No way.

Birds first

Another fiasco, that resulted in Cornwall literally being cut off from the rest of the country, was the Environment Agency's decision—against professional advice—not to safeguard the embankment of the Great Western Railway line at Dawlish that was subsequently washed away.

It realised it had to safeguard the railway, as it was in a perilous state, but the  Agency told that it 'could not act to protect the railway from the sea until it had studied the impact of improvements on the local bird life'.

As we must all know, it is now too late. No wonder there is such an outcry for a real shake-up of the Agency and a good few sackings.

Victor Swift