WATER, WATER EVERYWHERE....

Woodstock should have come to Hebden Bridge at the weekend. Well, sort of. Our home-grown music festival was going to be a sea of smiling faces replete with fun and funky tunes plus sunshine and picnics. Of course, it wasn't to be.

Stoical mums and dads wandered around in waterproofs or carried brollies while their kids and dogs wallowed in mud. The hot samosa stall did a roaring trade and we made the best of what was a very bad job. And no, I honestly cannot remember a summer as bad as this.

But the Govt knew it was coming. So why aren't they spending more money on flood defences. A National Audit Office report found last month that the Environment Agency had not properly maintained 63 per cent of the country's flood defences, including 54 per cent of "high-risk" sites. Earlier this year, the Met Office and risk planners in Whitehall told ministers that the summer would see much wetter weather than usual.
So what does the Govt do? Plan to cut jobs at the Environment Agency, which has responsibility for, er, flood defences.
Private water companies have also apparently been discouraged from building larger storm water drains and sewage systems because the government fears public anger over increased water bills (OK, take them back into public ownership and sort out a way of not unduly penalising consumers) .
Environment Agency chief executive Baroness Young said that £1 billion a year was needed for flood defence, but even that would not completely prevent flooding. Maybe not. Butof that's what is needed then the money must be made available.The cost in human misery - and danger to lives - thanks to the Govt's penny-pinching just isn't worth it either.