Preserve Huntingdonshire

We’ve had a pretty wet summer - if you can call it a summer. Inevitably we’ve now hit an environmental extreme and this time it’s the amount or rain that we’ve received over the summer months. See [BBC] Where has the UK’s summer gone?, [Met Office] Record-breaking June rainfall figures. It seems that this has been caused by the position of the jet stream which is much farther south than it normally is leaving us exposed to low pressure systems travelling across the atlantic.

This last week there’s been terrible flooding along the stretch of the severn from Worcester down to Gloucester - something I’ve had personal experience of in getting in and out of Malvern. Not to be outdone it seems that in our part of the world there are now predictions of doom and pestilence arising from the great ouse flooding - see [Town Crier] ‘St. Neots Still on Flood Alert’.

Now any flooding is a bad thing but it does seem nowadays that everyone is so afraid of being sued that warnings are pushed out at the slightest risk of getting ones toes wet. I can remember travelling to on the school bus to St. Neots that the river often flooded at Offord or near what was Samuel Jone’s mill at Little Paxton. It wasn’t a big deal - everyone just got on with things. It is an occupational hazard of living near rivers.

It is probably the case, however, that people have forgotten where to build and where not to build. It isn’t an accident that Ely is built where it is - and that it is dry! You can see this around you when looking at the sites of old building such as churches. The architects and builders in the past took time to site buildings and they rightly figured out that it isn’t a good strategy to keep fighting natural forces. Of course now we live in a part of the UK that has been experiencing some of the fastest growth in house-building. If Gordon Brown is to be believed this is probably going to get a lot worse ([Times Online] Brown Pledges Three Million New Homes by 2020. See [BBC] Proposals for New Town Go On ShowJust how many new towns can we take?

This inevitably encourages short-sightedness and folks taking shortcuts. After all - if the builder can take the initial profit he probably isn’t too worried about your long term prospects or the facts that you can’t get insurance cover (another gripe here I think ). It’s the poor owner or resident that bears the full cost every time.

How many examples do we think we have in the county where buildings have been sited on flood plains or ancient beds or run-offs? There must be loads.

We really ought to build with water in mind - both conservation, re-use and looking at the dynamics - as they do in Germany, for example.

Huntingdon Community Radio is a temporary community radio station serving the area on 87.7 MHz FM. It is available from 4/11/06 to 11/12/06 and re-appears every year.

It not only provides an opportunity for local folks to get on air but also to help in the production as described in the Town Crier article.

For further information see the HCRFM web site.

Today there was a massed protest against the proposed downgrading of Hinchingbrooke Hospital. There have been plenty of column inches on this in the local paper - The Hunts Post - see Hands Off Hinchingbrooke . Returning from the Music School there seemed to be an almost continuous stream of people so I’m hoping that the turn-out was good - we need to ensure that the message gets home.

Is there anyone out there who actually took part who would like to contribute their thoughts and observations and perhaps a picture? What was the mood like? I’m hoping that amongst the many who attended we might be able to find a newshound or blogger.

I suspect part of the difficulty is finding out who is responsible for making the decisions - health authority, government - and getting to them. Whilst it is always good to get folks on the streets this also needs to be backed up with lobbying the local and national politicians.

It’s going to be a long haul.