Blame EU for flooding

Instant wildlife: just add water! So proud was she of this brilliant idea, she even went around delivering speeches under that very title. The levels had long since been drained and reclaimed and are now home to many farms in an area reliant on flood protection measures, including an array of pumping equipment to send any flood water back over the bank into the local rivers. But given Baroness Young’s preference for wildlife over humans, this is a state of affairs she could not bear.

Of course, when one is head of the Environment Agency, it is far easier to divert spending and resources away from essential flood protection — in line with those EU directives — and put huge sums into birdlife habitats.

So it is in 2014 we see flooding in the Somerset Levels being far, far worse than it would have been if river dredging and proper flood protection measures had been maintained. And now for Labour Lord Smith’s stewardship of this over bloated tax wasting quango.

The EA is unable to fulfil its essential duties, it is drowning in bureaucracy and fashionable dogma. It has squandered £2.4 million last year on public relations activities, at the same time refused to spend £1.7million on dredging work that might have prevented the flooding that has engulfed the area.

Lord Smith of Finsbury, a former Labour Cabinet Minister, has long been a green radical. A seasoned practitioner at the political blame game, he now says the crisis is the fault of ‘massive cuts’ by the Tory-led Coalition. Financial support for the agency from the Government ‘has been going down and is still going down’. But this is misleading.

In reality, the Environment Agency’s total expenditure has actually increased, up from £1.16 billion in 2011/12 to £1.20 billion in 2012/13. Far from facing reductions, the agency’s workforce has expanded over the last year, the number of personnel rising from 11,363 to 12,252. Staff costs have risen from £394m to £432m.

The EA quango is a bloated empire, the largest of its kind in Europe. Bigger than the environmental agencies of France, Germany, Austria and Denmark combined. Lord Smith is on a salary of £97,365-a-year for a three-day week, the agency has 14 executives on more than £100,000, it has 6,600 vehicles, the majority of them company cars, one vehicle for every two employees.  

Previously I have attacked Labour incompetence locally, suggesting we need people with more ability and capability. Mr Duff has asked where are these people? My response is in any local junior school, given the facts, the kids would make better decisions than the people who run the EA.

Allen Cowles Whiston