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EA again.

C

Chris Guy

Senior Member
Out 45 minutes before sunrise this morning accompanying son as he's doing his A level art photography. Today was the day of continuity, dawn till dusk.
First off wee see a fox on it's way home, then we see long tailed & blue tits, sparrow hawk, little egret, herons, blackbirds, kingfishers, robins, crows, jay, magpies, pigeons, partridges, gold finches, chaffinches, swan, mallard, teal. Too many to remember.

But a sad part of the morning was to discover that the EA had dredged and widened my little river (River Hiz), taking out nearly all the weed beds, creating high unnatural banks of mud, taken out features as deeper bends, over hanging bushes. All in the name of flood prevention I guess. (there's no housing on the banks of this little river)

Water voles were evident in the past, but now there is no bank-side cover for them to hide in and their holes in the bank have been scraped away.

Also there was a healthy population of small roach, chub, dace and perch, but now their habitat has also been destroyed. The average depth has dropped about 6 inches as a consequence of this 'improved river'. I didn't see one fish, last year there were hundreds.
 
Sad indeed Chris, if there is no housing though what are they preventing flooding to??

The EA FDT would have absolutely no budget to carry out this type of work unless there is threat to human life...........are you sure it was the EA?? Farmers are often the culprits, trying to protect agricultural land........

Julian, if you are talking rod licence money then no, it does not go towards flood defence, otters or anything else outside of the EA Fisheries department budget, which it contributes between a third and a half to!!
 
VAT, income tax, etc.............

Quite right Ray, just not Rod Licence Money......... :)

We managed to stop this type of FDT on the Loddon and get together with the local residents committee and develop a whole new approach to local flood defence last year, funnily enough, the biggest driver for dredging at the time was from local conservative MPs!!!
 
JohnR MP lists himself as a watersports enthusiast, Ian - he probably wanted to jetski the Loddon. Quite reasonable, if you are jetskiier, after all...
 
Problem is the EA give out these jobs to sub-contractors, there's no real liaison between the two and hey presto, one stretch of river fxxxed. (no not fixed)
 
Yes, I've told the story here before here, about losing the homes (and with them the fish) of one of the biggest barbel in the South East, a fish I had had three times, the last time at 16.25 pounds, to a bunch of saw-happy sub-contractors. Haven't been near the stretch in well over a year, nearly two now.
 
Yep, the good old EA, charged with protecting our fisheries, saw fit to destroy 99% of all bankside cover on most of the lower Thames several years back, the 2007 floods did the rest. Now the fishing is a shadow of its former self, certainly for barbel, and we are funding their folly, oh happy days, NOT!!!!!!!!!!!
peter
 
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