No room for politics on local flooding risk

27/02/2010 by Steve Barclay.

Our internal drainage boads sit at the heart of protecting land in the Fens from flooding, with some of the land below sea level.  They are effective, practical, and have stood the test of time.  Their future has been called into question, but we mess with a tried and tested system at our peril.  Much of the work is now done on a volunteer basis by local farmers who benefit in return by keeping their farm land free of flooding.

Today was a chance to get out on the ground and see the internal drainage boards first hand, and chat with local farmer and the chairman of one such board Marc Hedding.  Marc very kindly took time out to brief me on the work undertaken, budgets involved, and key issues.  It is important that we do not take our eye off the ball on flooding, and today helped build on earlier discussions I have held with the Middle Level Commission, and other visits such as to the new pumping station St Germains which will be the second largest in Europe.  This issue also came up in questions at the NFU dinner at the Plate and Porter in March on Wednesday, where I was the guest speaker.  Next month I have a visit planned with Whittlesey farmer and businessman Ralph Potts to see the work of the internal drainage boards there.

Earlier in the day I visited Fenmarc, a thriving multi-million pound business group which has expanding from its initial focus on food packaging into hotels, IT systems, and renewable energy.  A highly impressive management team, with exciting plans for the future.  This includes their advanced food anaerobic digestion (AD) plant which is expected to produce electricity and heat from potato and other food waste which currently goes to expensive landfill.  Councils have a target of reducing landfill by 50% by 2013, and this plant will help significantly. It will also provide high quality soil conditioner, a dozen new jobs and electicity for 1,500 homes.  AD is a proven technology, with hundreds of such plants already up and running in Germany.  It says much for the gap between Labour’s rhetoric and delivery on climate change and green issues that we have less than 5 such plants in the whole of the UK.

A number of general business themes were also clear from businesses today, in common with others visited recently.  Despite the recession, certain industries such as those in the environmental sector have scope to expand, but transport infastruture needs improving.  Attracting locally educated graduates and apprecenticeships is a challenge.  Government grants are bureacratic and often poorly focussed, for example taking too long to complete or failing to provide the long term commitments sought by banks.  With collective will, these are issues we can tackle. 

A small observation from today is how much grade A fertile agricultural land in Cambridgeshire is being taken out of production and used for environmental schemes, and how much money is being spent on this.  A balance needs to be struck between environmental work and preserving food security.  It will be interesting how discussions on the Common Agriculture Policy develop, especially as the CAP budget is forcast to be cut in 2013 from 53 billion euros to 35 billion, and the pressure from Eastern European countries who will seek a higher share than in their first years after joining the EU.  The UK needs to be doing more to shape this debate.

The photos show a typical internal drainage board water pumping operation, in this case ensuring water goes out into the Ouse, which helps prevent flooding.  Unlike large parts of the West country, North East Cambridgeshire did not support any serious flooding last year.

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