Memorandum submitted by Carole Mortimer
(FL 31)
RECENT FLOODING
EVENTS
Please accept my thoughts on the recent flooding
for the inquiry by Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Committee.
I believe there is a need for an Act that puts
previous land drainage acts into reverse giving EA compulsory
powers to block drains that empty water out of unproductive land
not essential for productive farming. This Act should include
the following:
1. Provision to block drains from moorland
and also some of the improved land on the moorland fringe (that
was moorland before, say, 1970).
2. Drains in some forestry woodlands whether
in the lowlands or uplands—we have a huge wood that drains
off the ridge above the Pang Valley in West Berkshire and it is
full of deep drains and must have had some contribution to flooding
of properties along the River Pang, eg Bucklebury (it was once
a lovely semi-natural woodland but has been wrecked by commercial
forestry).
3. Compulsory powers to the EA to secure
management of floodplain land for flood defence purposes. This
might involve restoring floodplain grassland and/or woodland,
and installation of ditch networks that have water control structures
that can be operated by named agencies as a preventative measure
(e.g. to prevent floodwater entering a river, etc).
Furthermore the recent floods have highlighted
another major issue. The Environment Agency and Farming subsidies
have vastly increased the efficiency of land drainage and it is
this factor more than all others that have been responsible for
the dangerous flooding we have seen over recent years such as
in Gloucestershire.
In a number of European countries such as the
Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Denmark land policy has been
to retreat agricultural dykes from river banks creating more "natural"
flood plains. These newly created flood plains act as a sponge
to slow water flow and absorb water, helping buffer the effects
of heavy rainfall.
These newly created wetlands need management
to maintain their wetland characteristics and water absorbing
capacity. This has been achieved through the use of conservation
grazing.
It took many deaths by flooding for our European
neighbours to learn from the mistakes we have all made in trying
to turn our river systems into culverts. One such incident in
which a flood overran a dyke next to a school, killing 12 children,
was the event that saw the creation of the Blauwe Kalmer Nature
Reserve. The reserve was an early pioneer of near natural conservation
grazing using Cattle and Konik Ponies.
The Dutch and German Governments have found
it far more cost effective to subsidise this conservation grazing
than pay for intensive agriculture and maintaining flood defences
on river banks. As you can imagine this took a lot of work in
pushing the farming community down this road but in most cases
amicable arrangements where made with land owners.
The upshot of this is the flooding issue could
be solved very cost effectively by blocking upland drainage and
creating food plains along river systems. This would be a fantastic
boost to wildlife and would create a large scale conservation
grazing community to manage it.
Carole Mortimer (Mrs)
August 2007
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