Do people need to take responsibility themselves?

Just read an article on the bbc site about a couple who are complaining that the government needs to do more to prevent flooding after their house flooded in somerset so I looked into it.

It says in the article that their home is one of the lowest in the village
A search reveals that their home is LOWER than the country lane that it is on so their downstairs is below the level of the road slightly
Around a 4 yards from one side of their home and 10 yards from the other side they are flanked by TWO rhynes or drainage ditches or canals which were built to take water from the nearby fields which should naturally be flooded and allow them to be used for farming

What steps have this couple taken to protect their home? None. There was no fence or wall, nothing at all except a barricade provided by the government

Well sorry but that isn't good enough. They bought a house 6 years ago in this location knowing full well the risks, where it was situated and what the pretty little streams surrounding their front and back door were and why they were there so if they failed to protect their own home then tough! the tax payer should not have to fund their choices and their lack of responsibility

 

Your research is probably incomplete; you'd need to determine if there had been any changes to the habitat along the natural waterways to know if the potential for flooding had changed in those 6 years. Construction of most types will change the direction rainwater etc. flows/drains and lower absorbing materials (say concrete replacing a clay based soil) would have a significant impact on the volume of water that existing drainage systems would have to deal with. I don't have that information to hand, so I'm unsure if they have a point or not.

 

how do you know they bought it knowing full well the risks?

my mam and dad bought their current house in 1973,they didn't get flooded until 2007,then again 2009 and 2010,there has never been anything when I was a kid to suggest any flooding whatsoever,now,in low valley at wombwell they cant get insured properly,have a 10 grand excess on flood and **** themselves everytime we have a bad spell of rain.

 

Because they aren't blind and so they knew there were 2 drainage canals running less than 11 yards from their home that were there to drain the land because it was prone to flooding and unless they were thick they must have known the risk.

Also low valley, there's a clue in the title there too

 

low valley.been that for ever,didnt flood till 2007,

you talk like a pillock

 

Well I am going to side with SuperTyke here. Largely because I am extremely pi$$ed off that my taxes for the next 10 years will be paying for damage to many houses in the Calgary area caused last July by the the biggest flood in the area in almost 100 years. Some people have been given $1million to rebuild their homes, others hundreds of thousands of $$$$ and I am livid.

My biggest gripe is that the bulk of the damage, understandably, occurred along the banks of Calgary's Elbow river, in a flood plain (you would be really stupid to NOT know it was in a flood plain when you buy a house there) and also in a place called High River. I'm sorry, but I have no sympathy for anyone who choses to buy a house in a place called High River. The Native people called it that 150 years ago, for a reason.

So now, instead of updating schools and hospitals, we are paying these idiots who don't have an ounce of common sense. As my engineering other half always says, "always buy a house on a hill, not at the bottom - water always flows downwards".

 

Not wanting to sides in this debate because I confess I'm not knowledgeable enough, but shouldn't the surveyors' reports highlight the possible risk of flooding during the purchase/building phase?

 

Yes they should take responsibility but they don't and when things go wrong they look at everybody else to blame. For every case where there are people who can genuinely say that there were no risk when they purchased their home and that the habitat has changes I'm sure there will be many more who ignored the risk. I was always told to never build on a flood plane and likewise councils should not be granting planning permission on flood planes. Farmers also have to take a good look at themselves IMO.

 

Makes me laugh all these southerners whinging about not enough government bodies to help them out they voted for the Tories and cutting back public services. So shouldn't cry about it when there's not much help for them. The got the big society here's a bucket and a shovel save yourselves.

 

People have always settled on rivers. They were and still are a life source to many. Those who live inland and at the top of hills will have benefitted from the docks and ports established by these communities. Same as the flood plains and marsh lands were once the natural retreat of you ancestors against invasion and essentially populated through war time.

The ones whinging about their taxes are invariably meat-eating, petrol burning, climate change deniers, - who should really look at their own role in all this and stop with the 'I'm alright Jack' un-neighbourly attitude. Here's a good flood defence - 2 million copies of the Daily fcking Mail.

 

there a thousands and thousands of people in this country that are now threatened with flood,in areas that no one knew were even prone to flooding.As mr c rightly says whole towns and cities were built upon rivers.
like I say,low valley in wombwell/darfield had never flooded until 2007,Darfield main pit was built smack at the side of the river dove and was never flooded,if it had been there in 2007 they could have had a major problem on their hands because the water was halfway up the field where the pit used to be,then look at areas like darton,nobody had seen anything like those floods.Some of these properties in sommerset have been there for hundreds of years and never flooded.
its more likely there has been recent developments that have had their own flood defences put in which in turn has caused normally safe areas to flood,the water has to find somewhere to go.

 

I have alot of sympathy for them. It can't have been nice having no power for christmas so sat in the dark with candles eating sandwiches for december 25th. What I don't get is when the press show pictures of flooded living rooms everything is still in there. Surely if your house was looking like it could be flooded anytime you'd try and protect your sofa, television etc by taking them upstairs.

 

If you buy a house next to a cricket ground, can you complain if you get knocked out by a flying cricket ball?

 

I was surprised they built the new school where it is after 2007 but they must know what they're doing...

 

All depends if it's reasonably foreseeable or not.

Bolton v Stone [1951] is the leading case on it which was appealed up to the House of Lords. No negligence as it wasn't reasonably foreseeable (due to the rarity of the ball being hit out of the ground).

Miller v Jackson [1977] however found negligence as in this instance it was reasonably foreseeable. The fact that the plaintiffs had 'come to the nuisance' was no defence according to the Court of Appeal.

 

Agreed, I'm familiar with both cases. However, I believe this is an example of where the law is out of touch with common sense. If you consciously buy a house near a "nuisance" (which could be a sports ground, a pig farm, a noisy factory etc) the law allows you a defence even though you have "come to the nuisance". I think that's ******.

 

Much of the law flies in the face of what we might consider common sense.

 

Begs the question on whose behalf the laws are made, but life goes on.......

 

Could be a thesis on that.

 

I might start writing one. Alternatively I might go skiing, walking, camping, boozing and currying. Decisions, decisions....