Clive
...and as many of you have probably read...tradeoffs of 'adequate' defences against predictable storms have been in print... http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/10623109/UK-floods-Environment-Agency-accused-of-putting-birds-before-humans.html The Environment Agency has been accused of putting the needs of wildlife before those of humans in ...
http://www.southampton.ac.uk/~imw/Dawlish-Warren.htm With respect to considerations of a 'breakwater' this link is very interesting. It gives quite an indepth study by Southampton Uni around 6years ago of the 'tradeoff battle' between wildlife and the status quo of the Warren vs natural replenishment from the Dawlish Beaches vs railway. The fundamental issue is longshore drift. This can be ...
Did Dawlish get struck by a tsunami? - That would be an act of god. Was there a volcanic eruption? - That would be an act of god. Did Dawlish get extreme storms ? - Yes - Not an act of god. Sorry Mrs C, but if you attribute outcomes as being inevitable in the face of perfectly predictable extreme weather in this era of climate change, then best just shrug it off when the next stretch ...
Sure nature did the damage but the council or whoever is responsible should never have let things get so ridiculously bad in the first place. It's a perfectly predictable outcome. Doesn't really matter the timing of which went first, the groynes or the sand. The point is that the two are designed to be mutually beneficial to each other. Groynes help sand deposition that then helps protects ...
Or as the saying goes, 'you cannot make omelettes without breaking eggs'!
By NRs own admission ('The One Show', Mike Gallop) the majority of the wall (new 200year 'concrete breach section' excepted) is liable to only being good for 4-10years. NR therefore know full well that something major HAS to be done and done soon to beat the clock. To be fair to AMM, by 'involve the community' here's what she may be getting at. Breakwater solutions will not be a very pretty ...
Sorry nothing, losing the plot, was of course MM not AMM - getting my MMs and AMMs all mixed up now! (editted) Anyway, thing is DC was getting quized about the expenses farce rather than the more pressing matters that we actually elect and expect polititians to get on with.
Going back to the point of this thread, the real reason politicians get held in contempt by voters is their frequent brazen side stepping of questioning which repeatedly makes them sound so duplicitious. Even AMM's 30second 'apology' yesterday, came across as 'saying I am sorry because I have to'.
And this is the picture I am talking about...what the heck did people expect to happen in a storm when the foreshore has been left to be so completely denuded.
...and well done MM ...according to the World at One today, journalists at Dawlish are more keen to ask DC about her expenses than any other topic. Not that political humbug stopped there. The transport secretary was interviewed about investment in the SW and had to be pressed three or four times before even starting to half give an answer to the real question. Paraphrasing from memory: 1. ...
