The Curmudgeon

YOU'LL COME FOR THE CURSES. YOU'LL STAY FOR THE MUDGEONRY.

Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Water Management

The Government's HIPS and EPCs scheme has come in for renewed criticism for failing to compel sellers to include details about flood risks. Since about ten per cent of new homes built in 2004 and 2005 are at risk from flooding, with the percentage set to rise as the risk areas widen, the lack of compulsion to tell buyers seems little worse than a simple market-freedomising prudence opportunification; but Daveybloke's Conservatives do not seem to see it that way. They have complained that the scheme is "utterly untrustworthy and misleading", qualities nearly as unsuited to estate agents as they are to Daveybloke's Conservatives.

The shadow Minister for Housing Shortages, Grant Shapps, showed commendable insight into human nature when he "warned that sellers were unlikely to include flood risk information in selling packs if it was not compulsory", but the Government's Department for Communities and Local Government said that information on flood risks is "widely available" on the Environment Agency website, which advises those at risk to move their cars to higher ground, "leave internal doors open, or ideally, remove them and store them upstairs" and consider putting "sentimental items" permanently upstairs. Perhaps the Government plans to compel future flood waters to rise sufficiently slowly to permit these wise precautions. The elderly are informed, in case they didn't know it, that "your first thought should be your safety" and are then hastily told that they should plan their own escape route and rely on "family or friends" rather than the Government, unless they have a disability which entitles them to contact the local authority and ask what help is on offer.

The Environment Agency's chief executive, Baroness Young, whose first reaction to the floods seems to have been the observation that they would make a fine excuse for water companies to raise prices, has received a fifteen per cent bonus, while the Director of Water Management and seven others have received bonuses averaging ten per cent of their salaries, which they presumably consider commensurate with the dignity of their titles.

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