The Environment Agency (EA) has spent £313,000 on a badger sett.

[Robigus]

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/badger-family-sett-up-for-life-in-313-000-home-vbppfpd6s

Badger family sett up for life in £313,000 home
Jonathan Leake, Environment Editor


November 20 2016, 12:01am, The Sunday Times

Rehomed badgers were given £50 worth of peanuts LAURIE CAMPBELL/GETTY IMAGES​

The Environment Agency (EA) has spent £313,000 providing a new luxury home for a badger family.

The agency created a larder, sleeping area, communal space and latrine for the animals, linked by concrete pipes and buried under landscaped earth and bushes. It wanted to tempt them to quit a sett the animals had dug into the banks of the Steeping river, near the village of Wainfleet in Lincolnshire — potentially weakening flood defences.

Residents, however, were shocked at the cost — similar to that of a five-bedroom house with a large garden in the same area. The EA even stocked the artificial sett with £50 worth of peanuts.

The costs emerged only after a freedom of information request from Chris Pain, a Lincolnshire county councillor whose ward covers Wainfleet.

“The badger population has surged. There are a dozen other setts dug into the banks of the Steeping, so if each gets the same treatment it will cost £4m.”

The cost has also caused anger because the Steeping has not been dredged for 35 years — sharply raising the risk of floods. The EA has refused requests from the Lindsey Marsh drainage board to spend £800,000 removing the silt and reeds.

Giles Crust, vice-chairman of the drainage board, said the agency seemed keener on saving badgers than protecting people from floods. “The EA refused dredging requests for years but spent money on badgers without hesitating.”

It also means that the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, which funds the EA, is paying for luxury homes for badgers — while also paying for them to be culled elsewhere.

Badgers are a protected species except in cull areas, but they can be euthanised, subject to licensing from Natural England. The EA has rejected this approach and last week confirmed that it rehomed about 10 badger families a year. “Rehoming badgers by building artificial setts is only done in exceptional circumstances. Works at Wainfleet to construct artificial setts, install protective meshing and strengthen the banks cost £313,000.”

There is, however, evidence that the Wainfleet badgers have also rejected the EA’s scheme by refusing to move into the new home.

Crust said the new sett had been dug below the water level — making it too damp: “They have dug a new sett half a mile away — straight into the river bank.”

 

[RobFZS]

We're a country that's ran by Idiots.

 

[phillipe]

who gave these people the power to waste this sort of cash?

 

[haymaker80]

So much for the age of austerity, absolutely disgraceful waste of taxpayers money. Just think how many miles of river could have been dredged or deweeded with that money and provided some real benefits

 

[Kidds]

Just shoot them.

and the badgers

 

[milkloss]

Absolutely outrageous. Idiots deserve the sack for doing this. Of all the things they could spend £313K on they choose this. Country's gone to the dogs.

 

[Tarw Coch]

Just shoot them.

and the badgers

I'd only shoot the Badgers if they were found to be carrying TB.

As for those idiots at the EA...............

 

[Kevtherev]

Readymix was the answer @100 metre

 

[JP1]

DEFRA and the EA have plenty of Establishment backers. Yesterday regular Autumnal weather got the attention of Sky News. Must have been a slow news day. Lord Deben (John Selwyn Gummer) was stumped up as an "authority" on the subject.

When asked what folks should do to take precautions in bad weather, he suggested as a start they go to the EA for advice and guidance.

He then pointed out that DEFRA's budget had been severely curtailed. Then to say flooding was partly due to "inflexible, modern farming practices". He then went on to say farmers needed incentives to store water in the uplands

 

[Muck Spreader]

Then people wonder why migrants want to come to the UK, the land of more money than sense as they would see it.

Recently arrived migrants wait outside council housing office.

 

[Victor]

We've got it all wrong lads let's forget food production and offer luxury accommodation for the badgers. I'm sure the EA will pay the rent for them and we'll be thought of as saints for doing such a wonderful thing

 

[Robigus]

In the interests of fairness the Times has somewhat changed the story.​

This is by the science editor, the first was by the environment editor!

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sett-for-life-badgers-get-50k-home-hmqfxz9qn

Sett for life: badgers get £50k home
Tom Whipple, Science Editor


November 21 2016, 12:01am, The Times

Badgers in Lincolnshire are to enjoy luxury well beyond the trampoline used in John Lewis’s Christmas advertisement JOHN LEWIS/PA​

As if it were not enough that they are brazenly bouncing on trampolines in this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert, badgers are now being given luxury homes, too.

The Environment Agency has come under attack for spending almost £50,000 on a badger sett that included a larder, areas for socialising and sleeping and a latrine. It also spent more than £240,000 repairing damage done to flood defences by the animals.

The badgers had been digging into and undermining the banks of the River Steeping near Skegness. Officials hoped that the superior accommodation would tempt them away, allowing workers to shore up the banks.

The total cost of the works, including staffing, came to £313,450. Chris Pain, a local councillor, told the Grimsby Telegraph that the spending was unacceptable at a time of austerity.

“It worries me dearly that we’ve spent £313,000 on this one badger sett which is not guaranteed to solve the problem,” he said. “I’ve proposed to the environmental scrutiny committee that where animals threaten lives and livelihoods by burying into river embankments and roads, they should be culled or relocated straight away.”

He calculated that if the works, which involved placing anti-badger meshing, were repeated at other setts on the river, the total bill could exceed £4 million.

 

[Yale]

In the interests of fairness the Times has somewhat changed the story.​

This is by the science editor, the first was by the environment editor!

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sett-for-life-badgers-get-50k-home-hmqfxz9qn

Sett for life: badgers get £50k home
Tom Whipple, Science Editor


November 21 2016, 12:01am, The Times

Badgers in Lincolnshire are to enjoy luxury well beyond the trampoline used in John Lewis’s Christmas advertisement JOHN LEWIS/PA​

As if it were not enough that they are brazenly bouncing on trampolines in this year’s John Lewis Christmas advert, badgers are now being given luxury homes, too.

The Environment Agency has come under attack for spending almost £50,000 on a badger sett that included a larder, areas for socialising and sleeping and a latrine. It also spent more than £240,000 repairing damage done to flood defences by the animals.

The badgers had been digging into and undermining the banks of the River Steeping near Skegness. Officials hoped that the superior accommodation would tempt them away, allowing workers to shore up the banks.

The total cost of the works, including staffing, came to £313,450. Chris Pain, a local councillor, told the Grimsby Telegraph that the spending was unacceptable at a time of austerity.

“It worries me dearly that we’ve spent £313,000 on this one badger sett which is not guaranteed to solve the problem,” he said. “I’ve proposed to the environmental scrutiny committee that where animals threaten lives and livelihoods by burying into river embankments and roads, they should be culled or relocated straight away.”

He calculated that if the works, which involved placing anti-badger meshing, were repeated at other setts on the river, the total bill could exceed £4 million.

That's £49950 too much.

I'd let them have the peanuts with some sort of tasty dressing.

 

[Pennine Ploughing]

just our of interest, did they apply for planning permission for this new set

 

[haymaker80]

There is, however, evidence that the Wainfleet badgers have also rejected the EA’s scheme by refusing to move into the new home.

Crust said the new sett had been dug below the water level — making it too damp: “They have dug a new sett half a mile away — straight into the river bank.”

The Environment Agency has come under attack for spending almost £50,000 on a badger sett that included a larder, areas for socialising and sleeping and a latrine. It also spent more than £240,000 repairing damage done to flood defences by the animals.

How much is it going to cost to repair the damage to the river bank at the new site then??

 

[Deereone]

Building a sett " below the water level— making it too damp";even if they did move in, a damp sett would make the perfect breeding ground for TB.
For my money (which it is-well some of it) I would take advantage of the fact that they are damaging the river bank and get a licence to destroy them.
The sooner they are taken off the protected list the better.

 

[RobFZS]

This is just one sett they're reporting on, No doubt there will be plenty like this costing millions

 

[Dr. Alkathene]

5lb of peanuts and 10 packs of paracetamol. Job done.

 

[Ducati899]

wasn't this on the radio a few months back,think jeremy vine spoke about it

 

[Dry Rot]

Just shoot them.

and the badgers

I suppose you realise that remark will probably get you your guns seized?