Time To Move Forward?
One of the great examples of a lack of thinking before opening one's mouth, has been the frequent comments over the past ten days that the fault of the flooding around Tewkesbury lies firmly with the planners. Not the debate over land prices or planning but the fact that the houses have been built on a flood plain. Now I can't help thinking that anybody in, say, Sarawak, must have been clutching their stomachs in agony from laughter caused by such a stupd remark from so-called western civilisation.
It's time to wise-up, to look at alternatives instead of beating ourselves up every few years. If you go to Holland most of the country is actually below sea level but they have ways and means of preventing flooding on such a huge scale, from the huge port doors at Rotterdam to floating houses. This isn't a brand new idea, it's been talked about on TV and there are several sites on the internet where the houses themselves can be seen. The houses cost about £170-180,000 which is considered expensive for Holland but looks cheap when compared with house prices in the areas affected by floods, especially when you take into account the insurance cost of the all the damage.
1 comment:
What a self-indulgent little thread this is, like so much of this blog, in fact.
It's a strange phenomenon but boats actually float on water. And do you know that unless the news pictures were faked, many boats were swamped/smashed by the recent hurricane. I do believe that this has happened before, too.
The truth is that the houses built on stilts, or floating, in Holland have not yet been tested in extremis, like hedge funds until lately, and Tewkesbury.
Still, you know better, as always.
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