DEFRA consultation on Local Nature Recovery plans

[Henarar]

That is the problem with water, it really, really, wants to go downhill.... There is usually a good reason why men with pick and shovels dug ditches or cuts where they are located.

Quite fast flowing here and when it rains hard as it did a few nights ago it tends to go where it wants, had it out across one field then, one stream would flow though a foot pipe nearly all the time yet it wouldn't go through a 3 foot one the other night and we are only a mile from the top of the hill watershed

 

[Kevtherev]

It has huge potential. In my experience it has been seized by the conservation staff as a backdoor way to further their aims using the flood risk budget though.

It was just starting when I left. We (flood risk frontline staff) cautioned that they need to be much more cautious where it was applied, to avoid increasing risk to rural properties. We also raised the issue of who was responsible for maintenance or for the repercussions if it made flooding worse for a property but they weren't listening.

Like many things in life, it's as much about HOW you do it as WHETHER you do it.

The evidence is only now starting to come together on these issues and some clear cautions are emerging.

One we raised early on is critical; A key mechanism driving local flood risk can be the flood peaks of 2 or more channels arriving together at the confluence. This can massively increase the overall flood peak downstream. NFM has the potential to change the timing of sub catchments to disrupt this if done well.

If done badly it can actually create this problem where it didn't exist before.

Proper maintenance regimes like the old NRA did would be more appropriate.
Look at the river parrett problems before it was dredged.
That’s just one example plus I’m not getting into the dredge no dredge debate as that could go on for years…

 

[steveR]

Proper maintenance regimes like the old NRA did would be more appropriate.
Look at the river parrett problems before it was dredged.
That’s just one example plus I’m not getting into the dredge no dredge debate as that could go on for years…

Spot on.

On all counts

 

[DrWazzock]

Ask the EA about a watercourse abstraction licence and you can’t have one because there is a shortage of water here so they say. Yet they are encouraging sacrificial flood plains to protect down stream conurbations. So which is it?
Personally I’d have thought reservoirs to store winter surplus water would be a damn good idea. Helps my crops through a dry summer and avoids laying waste to hundreds of acres in winter. Win win. But no can do.

 

[DrWazzock]

What we really need is a rural infrastructure recovery plan. We will get nothing back from newts and toads but of course that’s not a problem to some because they don’t rely on crops for a living and food comes from the supermarket.
If leaving big areas to nature was a goer, then that land would never have been turned over to agriculture in the first place. Do we learn nothing from history. Keep the land productive and in good heart. Don’t mess around with essential production.

 

[DrWazzock]

And I don’t think that wildlife likes being dry one minute then flooded out the next minute. Even wildlife likes a reasonably stable water level.

 

[Kevtherev]

And I don’t think that wildlife likes being dry one minute then flooded out the next minute. Even wildlife likes a reasonably stable water level.

Badger setts and flooding is quite useful…

 

[delilah]

What we really need is a rural infrastructure recovery plan.

ELMS could be a part of that; if structured properly, if part of a joined up plan that incorporates the necessary policies pertinent to the food chain, and if it had buy-in from farmers themselves as represented by their national bodies. Not holding my breath.

 

[Kevtherev]

Does boris read TFF?

 

[delilah]

I picked up on that paragraph too. The wording of it can be read negatively; that some farmers world refuse to do these things unless well paid for doing it.

I would push back against any scientist saying that with "So would YOU continue to spend as much time and effort investigating these issues if YOU were not being paid to do so? "

Farms are, after all, businesses.

Is your thread on the EFRA committee report going to be put back up ? Was it to do with a press embargo ?

 

[delilah]

Does boris read ?

Edited for you

 

[holwellcourtfarm]

Is your thread on the EFRA committee report going to be put back up ? Was it to do with a press embargo ?

Today.

Yes.

My mistake, sorry.

@Chris F