Western Daily Press (Saturday)
500-word missive stating the obvious
Bridgwater and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger has received a lengthy communication from the Environment Agency. He is less than impressed, however – as he tells Environment Secretary Thérèse Coffey
DEAR Thérèse, Got to put my hand up to it: I have been a bit harsh on the Environment Agency at times. Perhaps castigated it a little too vigorously. Criticised it excessively, as it were.
I know it was pretty well entirely responsible for large parts of Somerset disappearing under the worst floods for a century in 2013 and then again a year later. But anyone can make a mistake – twice.
I mean, how were the Environment Agency people to know that if they stopped dredging the rivers – having flogged off all the machinery to dredge them with – they would get clogged with silt and overflow?
Anyway since that time the people at the EA’s Wessex area office have seemed inordinately keen to keep me abreast of what’s going on, apparently to reassure me that there are no more cunning plans to submerge a large chunk of my constituency.
The latest missive from them landed on my desk last week. It runs to some 500-plus words, plus the usual salutations, and while I appreciate being kept, as it were in the loop, equally I can only admire the ability of someone who can devote so many of those words to stating the bleedin’ obvious.
For example, it tells me the staff are ‘winter ready’. Well as – in my experience at least – winter in various degrees of severity tends to come round fairly predictably towards the end of the year (as opposed to, say, popping up unexpectedly during July or August) saying you are ‘ready’ for it doesn’t indicate that any unusually high degree of ingenuity and foresight has been necessary.
The agency, so I am told, is also ‘horizon scanning’ – though not literally, as in standing on the roof with
a pair of binoculars looking out for rain. Rather, as it explains: ‘Our dedicated incident team focuses on risk related to weather events, tidal ranges and business continuity – by anticipating events we are able to prepare and act early to be in the best position to respond.’
Translation: ‘We are ready for potential bad weather.’
Then there is: ‘We have staff trained across all areas of our business dedicated to incident response.’
I am much relieved to know they haven’t been recruited for their ability to knit scarves or paint ceilings.
There’s more: ‘Our coastal engineers complement our 24/7 flood
warning capability, to interpret forecasts and identify any upcoming coastal issues and impacts as early as possible, whilst sharing this information widely across partners and communities.’
Plain English: ‘If it looks like flooding we’ll tell people.’
And then there is: ‘Our changing climate means that during periods of heavy rainfall in winter we have too much water in a short space of time, whilst warmer and drier conditions at other times of year mean our environment and water supplies feel the strain of too little water.’
Which would have been fine had it been prefaced with: “You see, children….”
Am I appearing ungrateful? I hope not. Clearly a lot of effort has been expended in assembling this most comprehensive compendium of information. Several meetings must have been involved in the planning of its content. Overtime might have been necessary. Midnight oil burned.
But do I feel enlightened, better informed, reassured or comforted as a result of reading it?
Alas, no.
Do I regard the whole thing as being a waste of someone’s (highlypaid) time? Alas I do.
Yours ever,
Ian