Western Daily Press (Saturday)
‘Oh it’s only farmland’ view must not carry on
Bridgwater and West Somerset MP Ian Liddell-Grainger tells Defra Secretary Steve Barclay of rising anger over plans for a new Somerset wetland
DEAR Steve, I see the Environment Agency got a jolly good kicking – or perhaps a stilettoing, as it was delivered by the outgoing madam president – at the NFU conference this week.
Well, three cheers for her. It only took her four years but finally she plucked up the necessary spirit to poke the Government in the eye with a sharp stick.
The Environment Agency, she declared, was no longer fit for purpose. And the same, incidentally, went for Natural England. Couldn’t agree more. If not actually partners in crime, then yoked together in criminally bad land management, in my book.
Because down here they are behind a ridiculous plan to flood nearly 1,000 acres of good-quality farmland to create a new wetland.
This as a sop to compensate for a fish deterrent system that was proposed for Hinkley Point C but has now been ruled out.
Illogical or what? It’s a bit like me deciding I need a new car but buying a food processor instead.
This devious pair are claiming it’s an EDF project, but their dabs are all over it. And in the eyes of local people both are falling back into the same disrepute that hallmarked them when we had our disastrous flooding a decade ago and which was purely and simply down to the Environment Agency’s mismanagement – though there was never a public inquiry and no one had the ruler smartly applied to their knuckles.
At the time one had the feeling that the Environment Agency wasn’t unduly worried by many square miles of Somerset disappearing beneath the waters – indeed its chairman was heard to declare that if she had her way she would blow up the pumping stations which normally keep that area dry and habitable.
But it’s the matter of flooding that Ms Batters raised rather vigorously with the PM at the NFU beanfeast. Specifically that we are relying more and more on storing water on farmland to keep thousands of homes safe.
Which may be a good idea when those floods are only occasional. But this winter they have been particularly severe, leaving some farmland submerged for three or four months – and goodness knows what state it
will be in when it finally surfaces. Farmers on the Somerset Levels used to welcome winter flooding because their land was enriched by the deposited silt, but it was strictly a short-term arrangement.
If, as seems likely, we are moving into an era of heavier and more frequent rainfall then we are going to have to pay farmers to compensate them for the income they will be forced to sacrifice to keep other people’s homes dry.
We cannot carry on with the current cavalier attitude of “well, it’s
only farmland”. It’s not “only” farmland: it’s where our food comes from. The primary purpose of farmland is to feed the nation. And as I have pointed out previously if we are going to rewild it or cover it in allegedly carbon-capturing trees or, now, turn it into reservoirs then farmers must absolutely be compensated. Quickly, simply, adequately and unquestioningly.
Because every ton of beef we can’t produce will have to come from elsewhere, such as South America. In which case we shall be subscribing
to environmental destruction on a vast scale – and how green does that make our credentials look?
Incidentally I note the Conservative Rural Forum is calling for topgrade agricultural land to be ringfenced from solar park installations. Brilliant idea. I’m all for it. But by the same token – and if it’s that valuable – then why aren’t we protecting it from half-baked, ill-conceived and unwanted wetland projects deviously cooked up by a pair of arm’s length Government agencies?
Yours ever, Ian