Wednesday 25 June 2008

"Flooding plan needs improvement"

There appear to be some sensible suggestions in The Pitt Review, but where they completely miss the point is the idea that we need a dedicated Cabinet Office to dish out £800 million a year for flood defences.

Flooding is a supremely local issue! ('This is a local flood for local people'). So this is a job for Land-Value-Tax-Man:

Every local authority in flood-prone areas gets competitive quotes for whatever is needed (demolition, drainage, dykes, pumps or whatever) and works out the contribution needed in pence per annum per sq yd of all those plots of land that will benefit. It also gets indicative quotes from insurance companies by how much they would reduce insurance premiums for buildings and contents.

Whether to introduce the charge to pay for the works (or a range of possible options) is then put to a referendum of local property owners, who are given all the financial information on which to base their decision.

Update: The BBC website linked to this, he said proudly.

6 comments:

Simon Fawthrop said...

Good plan. You could also add in how much the value of the land (ie house) will increase if the work is done.

Anonymous said...

Excellent idea.

You can bet though that, if your straightforward, simple and realistic plan is taken up by our rulers, we'll get both your plan AND (just to see that the necessary diversity and other targets are met you understand) a "Minister for Flood Amelioration, Prevention and Reform" plus local "Flood Trusts" (similar to this load of wasters of space with attendant "Flood Trust Chief Executives" at £millions.

DBC Reed said...

Brill. How about getting in touch with savethebroads, since there are plans to inundate hundreds of acres of land round and including Hickling Broad (the biggest? feels like it)as the authorities can't be arsed to keep up the flood defences. There is also some background plan to let the sea invade all over East Anglia making Ely an island again and making Thetford a seaside town (if you don't know the area,believe me this is well inland.)

Anonymous said...

similar to drainage rates?

Mark Wadsworth said...

Ah yes, but the gummint has to flood The Norfolk Broads to "deliver a message" about "climate change".

DBC Reed said...

Somewhat shaken by the idea of flooding great areas of the country just to impress people with the current theory of global warming.Had n't seen this particular quote before.