Proper flood defences could benefit our economy
SHOULD the Government intend to make good on its promise to invest and build to nurse our economy back into good health, it should give serious consideration to flood defences both inland and offshore.
Inland it is now patently obvious that the measures being undertaken are too slow and in some cases inadequate.
Offshore, to just accept that we should and will lose large parts of East Yorkshire as the fastest disappearing coast in Europe is just not acceptable.
Without the EU shackles, the Government should now give very serious consideration to funding, revitalising, reinstating and, dare I say it, perhaps even nationalising steel production at Teeside, Deeside, South Wales and Sheffield. Certainly the sites capable of producing millions of tonnes of steel sheet piles for use in proper flood defences and structural steelwork and reinforcement for construction instead of importing materials where British was and still could be best.
Building earth banks and sacrificing thousands of acres of farmland to flood plains is not the proper answer either and would not happen in Holland, where millions of acres have been reclaimed from and are always below sea level.
Permanent river banks of sheet piles or concrete may be a more expensive short-term solution, but, given the job creation and the longterm benefits, it has to be given a serious consideration.
Offshore, concrete piling utilising existing cleaned sea materials and alternatively steel piles could allow for huge areas of sea bed between the eroding coast and the newly offshore piled walls to create billions of cubic metres of sealable cheap landfill space. This would massively reduce expensive on land landfill while defending our shores and the surface reinstated could be used for a wide variety of activities.