Rain ruins Christmas in Gloucestershire as homes and businesses flood

“I take your point, don'tyaknow. If it was the result of a referendum, then REALLY careful monitoring by the media (TiG, are you listening?) might hold them to it, but I too, have little faith. But that surely cannot be the sole reason for me now having a -6 score on this comment too. Come on you lot, what have you got against road repairs?”

“Littleoldlady, it's a good idea in theory but I wouldn't trust the council to ring fence any rise in council tax to be spent solely on road repairs.

Those big pension pots don't pay for themselves.”

“I'm interested as to why I got so many negative reactions for my comment. Is it because you don't want to have to pay for the roads to be repaired? Sooner or later they will have to be, and no-one else pays except, eventually,, the taxpayer. Nothing is free in this world, so saying "the council must do something" but then refusing a tax rise for it is merely blinkered. Yes, farmers who don't keep ditches cleaned or clear field drains so that our roads are inundated with run-off are at fault, but all councils have been cutting back on infrastructure spending for years in order to keep council tax down. This is the result: inadequate drainage and road surfaces that cannot cope. Look in Spain or France: they have deep gulleys at the sides of roads to take away run-off; they don't have as much rain in total as we do, but when they get it, they get it heavy, and they rarely suffer from surface water flooding. And their road surfaces don't disintegrate like ours do. If we want good services, we must pay for them!”

“To say no-one cares is just not the case. The sheer volume of floodwater is a sight to behold and almost impossible to stop. I am sure many measures have been taken but you are fighting against the extreme forces of nature. I'd be very interested in how anyone might suggest we should cope with such an enormous volume of water. Mending a few pot-holes and clearing a few ditches will have very little effect.”

“what a shame”

“A thought for the time after the floods subside: will the councils & Highways Agency act quickly to repair the appalling damage being done to the roads? Whereever there a persisted, repeated floods gthe carfriageway breaks up leaving collectionbs of potholes. If this goes on all winter, especially if there is also hard frost, some stretches of road - even main roads such as the A417 - will be unusable by the spring. I have already had to replace a tyre after a puncture caused by a single pothole, but now they are breaking out in great patches. And this is all at a time when the government is forcing huge cuts in spending on infrastructure.
The only way to get these roads fixed is to raise council tax by a specific amount dedicated to road repairs. If that means putting the tax up by over 2% and triggering a referendum, so be it. I'd vote for it - I want to be able to travel. What does anyone else think?”

“Given that the first job of any Govt is to protect it's citizens, that should now include the threat from flooding.
So far, we have just had a reactive situation regarding flooding defences, silt removing, drain clearing, etc, etc. But this has to change to a proactive stance.
Just recently there were various agencies clearing a few gulleys in Winneycroft Lane, but it's all too little too late.
People's lives are being made a nightmare, and no-one cares.
The unemployed, that are claiming benefit should be used to do some work, then fine the lazy fat-cat farmers that are just sat on their fat @r$£$, claiming all their grants. They are the ones that should be clearing ditches on their own land, but they do nothing.
Jeeeeeeez, we put men on the moon nearly forty four years ago, yet we can't clear this water?”