Sacrificing farm land during a flood to protect properties downstream

[Flat 10]

The EA are bunch of jobsworths. Round here 3 blokes take about a fortnight to strim the banks of our local river and glyphosate the weed every few years. In the meantime the IDB chap with a hymac and weedcutting bucket does miles everyday. All EA people do is ride about in white 4x4s. If you ever see a digger working there's 2 people parked in vehicles either side of it to ensure no one approaches it. Can you tell I don't like them? As for the OP get advice but kick up a stink bigtime.

 

[Brisel]

The Internal Drainage Boards are funded by the inhabitants of the catchment, many of whom are farmers. Lots of farmers on the board of the IDB I used to live within too. They have to provide value for money and answer to the rate payers not government unlike the EA.

 

[Steevo]

The Internal Drainage Boards are funded by the inhabitants of the catchment, many of whom are farmers. Lots of farmers on the board of the IDB I used to live within too. They have to provide value for money and answer to the rate payers not government unlike the EA.

They also have to pay a proportion of the levy money they collect directly onto the EA. i.e. IDB get the flak, EA snaffle money guilt free.

 

[Flat 10]

They also have to pay a proportion of the levy money they collect directly onto the EA. i.e. IDB get the flak, EA snaffle money guilt free.

Yes they do. In the fens there are occurrences of EA main rivers leaking into IDB waterways who then have to pay EA to pump the water back in. And yes the EA precept is massive.

 

[Nithsdale]

Back in the heavy rains 2013 the flood banks failed on the River Nith in 2 places, flooding a couple hundred acres of flat arable ground. The waters dropped, and those clever folks at SEPA decided it'd be great to leave the flood banks 'broken' as it'd save the town (which floods almost every year due to a lack of dredging in the estuary).

Next heavy rains (and an automated reservoir emergency system releasing millions of litres of water into the river at high tide ) all the land was flooded again. The officials came out and saw first hand what they were proposing - and how it affected houses and roads...


The land owners were served orders to get the flood banks reinstated ASAP

 

[Will Blackburn]

when was the flood bank installed? if it was placed there to protect the land from flooding, due to the construction of a mill requiring impounding the river, there is a fair chance there is an act of parliament, which may be ancient.
To impound the river always required an act of parliament, and normally it was a requirement to protect landowners above from flooding, by erecting levees and back ditches which would drain below the weir. these rights were in perpetuity, which made old mills very difficult to sell due to the liability.
These liabilities were taken over by the EA in the 1980's, when they assumed many of the responsibilities of the old river boards.
It certainly is the realms of serious Barristers and their associated costs I am afraid. You should be compensated for your losses but I am not over hopeful as the EA are very high handed and tenants will be far down their list of priorities
Speak to the NFU quickly or /and TFA

Fascinating, we are exactly in that position and some maintenance is required. Plus the NT are keen on renaturalising the river which is bunded by several mills. In my mind absolutely impossible without circumnavigating the mill weirs. The EA have spent millions on fish ladders round these very same weirs.

 

[livestock 1]

I have and still do flood a couple of fields to safeguard any flooding of houses. The consequence of my actions which are efforts of a sympathetic and compassionate nature to others which inflicts a cost to myself which I have to pay for, lead to scrutiny about my field drainage which is not the issue. The old saying that no good turn is unpunished springs to mind. When my field drains were checked by the relevant council person and after they used their latest computer software to work out which in the most complicated part could only be described as Pythagoras therium they concluded it was their council drain that was not big enough and have agreed that my self inflicted flooding of land does limit flooding of property. As it’s their drain that has come to light no action is to be taken surprisingly. Now the people from NE have approached me with a 5 million pound pot of money with the view of putting a series of different measures in to slow the flow of water on my land. After spending a good few hours with the very pleasant man from NE looking and discussing these damming type constructions I asked what sort of payment I could expect he replied nothing. I suggested he went back for a rethink. The story continues

 

[borderterribles]

We struggled with a similar situation to the OP on a rented farm for almost twenty -five years. Over that time the flooding , which took out a third of the acreage on a regular basis, became worse and the attitude of the EA, IDB got worse also. It was designated flood plain, which I accepted that it always had been, but the issue was that they refused to continue to maintain their river.
My suggestion that if I was to pay their drainage rates then they should pay, or in reality, compensate me for the time when their river made our land unusable, was dismissed out of hand by the authorities. Never seemed right to me that my neighbour had maybe 200 acres above us which drained across us via ditches, but paid nothing to the IDB.This became more of a problem when he let a fair bit of it to be covered in polytunnels, which meant that virtually no rainfall was absorbed by the neighbour's ground.

 

[Flat 10]

We struggled with a similar situation to the OP on a rented farm for almost twenty -five years. Over that time the flooding , which took out a third of the acreage on a regular basis, became worse and the attitude of the EA, IDB got worse also. It was designated flood plain, which I accepted that it always had been, but the issue was that they refused to continue to maintain their river.
My suggestion that if I was to pay their drainage rates then they should pay, or in reality, compensate me for the time when their river made our land unusable, was dismissed out of hand by the authorities. Never seemed right to me that my neighbour had maybe 200 acres above us which drained across us via ditches, but paid nothing to the IDB.This became more of a problem when he let a fair bit of it to be covered in polytunnels, which meant that virtually no rainfall was absorbed by the neighbour's ground.

Here an IDB has a legal obligation to prevent flooding as far as reasonably practical as I understand it.

 

[digger64]

We are paying drainage rates but the EA havent touched the river for several years now re maintenance and are now effectively destroying our grazing indirectly , fence posts are being washed out as the river is trying to run wider

 

[Steevo]

Yes they do. In the fens there are occurrences of EA main rivers leaking into IDB waterways who then have to pay EA to pump the water back in. And yes the EA precept is massive.

I honestly can't believe how useless some public bodies are sometimes!

 

[Steevo]

haven't e Internal Drainage Boards are funded by the inhabitants of the catchment, many of whom are farmers. Lots of farmers on the board of the IDB I used to live within too. They have to provide value for money and answer to the rate payers not government unlike the EA.
We are paying drainage rates but the EA havent touched the river for several years now re maintenance and are now effectively destroying our grazing indirectly , fence posts are being washed out as the river is trying to run wider

Drainage rates have almost become a tax now. They (EA) expect you to pay it and will run after you for it...yet you see little in return from them.

 

[digger64]

We are paying drainage rates but the EA havent touched the river for several years now re maintenance and are now effectively destroying our grazing indirectly , fence posts are being washed out as the river is trying to run wider

Drainage rates have almost become a tax now. They (EA) expect you to pay it and will run after you for it...yet you see little in return from them.

Problem is most of the landowners dont want to upset the apple cart regarding their payments and gave up their livestock a long time ago

 

[miniconnect]

@Spotty dog we are involved in a local 'flood alleviation scheme' with our local council. Probably a much smaller scale than you are. If your interested in how we are doing things pm me.
Or if you Google Aecom or flood alleviation scheme' there's other schemes happening in kilmarnock / East Kilbride.
We are in the discussion and surveying process.

 

[digger64]

To be fair the EA and the drainage board do good stuff on the land (nearly at or below sea level )we have on the big river 20 miles away nearer the sea , but if the river wall breaks there 1000's of acres of land would be saline lives would threatened in towns and villages

 

[digger64]

it's t EA are bunch of jobsworths. Round here 3 blokes take about a fortnight to strim the banks of our local river and glyphosate the weed every few years. In the meantime the IDB chap with a hymac and weedcutting bucket does miles everyday. All EA people do is ride about in white 4x4s. If you ever see a digger working there's 2 people parked in vehicles either side of it to ensure no one approaches it. Can you tell I don't like them? As for the OP get advice but kick up a stink bigtime.

Same here, then they say there is no money and its to expensive to clean the river , the wet holes they created cost £ 35 k -apparently that £ would have cleaned 20 km of the river !

 

[Spotty Dog]

@Spotty dog we are involved in a local 'flood alleviation scheme' with our local council. Probably a much smaller scale than you are. If your interested in how we are doing things pm me.
Or if you Google Aecom or flood alleviation scheme' there's other schemes happening in kilmarnock / East Kilbride.
We are in the discussion and surveying process.

Thanks for that, i will.

 

[digger64]

Fascinating, we are exactly in that position and some maintenance is required. Plus the NT are keen on renaturalising the river which is bunded by several mills. In my mind absolutely impossible without circumnavigating the mill weirs. The EA have spent millions on fish ladders round these very same weirs.

What I dont understand is, if they don't want to spend money on the river why don't they remove the old mill sluices as they appear to cause most of the surges due to lack of joined up thinking and being operated to late

 

[Spotty Dog]

Thanks for the replies so far, there's no IDB on the Tyne as far as i know, and the bank in question was built in the 1960's by whichever goverment body was in charge of rivers in those days. It wasn't built for mills to work properly, it was put up to protect farm land !

 

[66Longhorns]

A long time ago I managed a farm on the River Wear. The river had been rerouted by the monks at the cathedral and had an embankment to protect the farmland. Years of management was threatened when the EA didn't want to do any more bank maintenance and we also had badgers undermining the wall. I found an article in the IAGRM farm management journal about charging for flood water storage and tried to speak to a number of different interested bodies but never got anywhere, got the impression it was all too much bother and who was going to pay, if they did nothing the land flooded and they got what they wanted anyway. I gave up in the end. I would get the NFU involved as the EA like to impose their will and need keeping in check.