Four years on:

In January 2003, many thousands of people near the Thames, downstream of Windsor, were affected by flooding for the first time in over fifty years.  It is now blatantly obvious why the Minister responsible at the time (Elliot Morley MP) refused to hold a public inquiry into the role of the Environment Agency (EA) and their Jubilee River (JR) flood channel.

Since the flood event, evidence has emerged that almost the entire length of the Jubilee River sustained structural damage.  The EA recently celebrated a multi-million pound out-of-court settlement with the JR designers, conveniently overlooking details such as that the £2.75m compensation settlement failed to even cover the cost of repairs.  In particular the design capacity shortfall reduced the level of protection, thus undermining the original cost/benefit justification of the £110 million scheme.

The EA has neglected dredging the Thames (for flood defence purposes) since they took over from the NRA in 1995, and its now spending their time extending the list of excuses as to why it should not re-instate maintenance dredging.  The most recent (and bizarre) excuse is the ‘Depressed River Mussel’ at Staines.  In my opinion, people must come first, and the end result of failure to maintain watercourses is the increased probability of flooding.

Since the flood event, the EA have vociferously maintained that their JR Operating Procedure was faultless, in spite of claims that the procedure was fundamentally flawed, and therefore detrimental to the downstream villages.  However, the EA recently revealed that it is now, at last, having the procedure independently assessed.

Finally. what really infuriates me is that after four years of vociferous denial and smug arrogance from the EA, the individuals responsible for the mistakes and costly (public money) fiasco continue to evade any personal responsibility.

Ewan Larcombe