Essay by Eric Worrall
Joined up thinking doesn’t appear to be a feature of post Brexit waterway management.
This waterlogged corner of England was once only habitable during summer. Climate change could make it so again
Published: February 20, 2026 11.57pm AEDT
Jess Neumann
Associate Professor of Hydrology, University of ReadingStanding on the hills looking out across flat green fields, linked by a network of hedgerows, copses and small settlements, the Somerset Levels looks like quintessential English countryside.
…
Right now, the levels are experiencing extensive flooding, stretching for miles on all sides of any roads that are still open to vehicles. Communities are trying to cope with a relentlessly wet winter halting transport, closing schools and leaving homes underwater, underpinned by a longer-term cycle of climate and sea-level change.
…
Draining of the levels
Large-scale and coordinated drainage of the Somerset Levels began around the 12th century and brought about a gradual end to seasonal occupation. River embankments were constructed to reduce tidal flooding and sluices were built to manage water flow.
…
Today, pumping remains essential to manage flood risk. Dredging, however, remains a politically contentious issue and is only used as a carefully considered method in certain places. While dredging can benefit local flood risk in the short term, the longer-term implications for nature, water quality, downstream flood risk and economic cost are now widely known.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/this-waterlogged-corner-of-england-was-once-only-habitable-during-summer-climate-change-could-make-it-so-again-275995
…
A decade ago, EU regulations were blamed for impeding the dredging required to keep the waterways flowing.
But now the EU is gone, at least in terms of its power to dictate policy to Britain.
Why are British politicians still punishing people who live in vulnerable regions, by failing to protect their homes? Is dredging really worse than someone having their home and possessions flooded? What am I not understanding about this situation?
They are SOS Stuck On Stupid .
😉
How dare those Limeys mess with the hallowed wetlands!
They are indeed hallowed!
For our American friends, the Somerset Levels are where Alfred The Great retreated to after a major defeat by the Vikings. For a while all he ruled was an Island (Athelney) in the marshes until he was able to organise enough allies to march out and defeat the Vikings. His victories established a kingdom that went on to become the kingdom of England. He was truly The Great.
They made a very good movie about Alfred the Great in the 1960’s.
Labour, and much of the establishment, opposed Brexit, so they are ignoring that it happened, and why.
They want the oppressive green rules, so they follow them despite Brexit.
Traitor parliaments under May, Johnson (sic) and Sunak.
Don’t leave Starmer out of that list
He is Mr second referendum and that is so very EU
Brexit was never supposed to happen according to the CoL masters who are actually running the show.
Every time it floods, the usual sycophants scream that the floods are being caused by global warming.
Solving the problem of flooding would limit their chances to seize more power.
They will never allow this problem to be solve.
Post Brexit Britain Still isn’t Dredging Canals
That’s rewilding, and wind and solar are de-wilding.
All bases covered.
Average checks out!
What’s Brexit got to do with a local problem on the west coast of England ?
The fishing industry, eg Newlyn, Cornwall
When GB joined the EU they were forced to obey all the rules and regulations of the EU. After centuries of river dredging in GB to lower the risks and damages of flooding – the EU said “You may not…”
For whatever reason, since Brexit, dredging has not been resumed.
The main reason, Gabby, is that the country is bankrupt and there is no money to do anything sensible.
STORY TIP
Polar Bear’s marathon swim
Wildlife experts stunned after GPS collar shows a young polar bear swimming extraordinary distance across open sea
https://www.chasewaterdogs.co.uk/21-172358-gps-collar-shows-a-young-polar-bear/
In Feb 2020, Not a Lot of People …(Paul Homewood’s site) had a post titled “No Flooding In Somerset Levels, Thanks To Owen Paterson”
[… floods six years ago, and how they were exacerbated by the lack of proper dredging, poor pump maintenance, bank clearing etc:]
The link now brings a 404 error.
Post Brexit is Pre Entry?
Over 80% of 16 to 24-year-olds would vote to rejoin the EU, ITV poll finds
nice try troll. Do try harder.
ITV – part of the coordinated UK Defence and Security Media Advisory (DSMA) Committee
The Grayzone dismantle this here https://thegrayzone.com/2025/11/30/files-expose-britains-secret-d-notice-censorship-regime/
Ah but will their views change as they grow older?
It would be a fascinating social experiment if it wasn’t so damaging. Fill their heads with left wing globalist supranational nonsense in schools, then see how long it takes them to figure out they were lied to.
Do you really think the UK stands a chance alone against the US, China and Russia?
Divide et impera
The EU’s share of global economic activity plummeted from 25% in 1990 to around 14% today. If you’re going to be a member of a supranational club, at least pick a winner.
Yuh, it could volunteer to be America’s 51st state. 🙂
Or maybe America will be generous and make it 4 states: Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England. Seems fair. 🙂
We share many more values with our American cousins than we do with China or Russia
It can have “common ground” with the EU without rejoining it- without having to remove its borders. The entire EU can’t stand against the US and China. Why on Earth would you add that 3rd world has bin Russia?
I think they’re more interested in having easy travel there during their gap year and university holidays.
The poll (Savanta for ITV’s Peston programme / Youth Tracker, fieldwork 4-9 February 2026, sample of 1,040 UK 16-25 year-olds) asked a very simple hypothetical question along the lines of “Would you vote to re-join the EU if there was a referendum tomorrow?” – resulting in 83% yes/re-join vs 17% no/stay out.
Since there is no access to the poll questions and answers, it’s not a fully “fair and open” measure of real-world opinion because:
Only in the mind of a true believer could this be a fair poll.
Full disclosure: I voted remain in the EU. I now think re-joining would be a mistake, although I would like to see stronger, yet independent, co-operation with the EU. We do not need to reinstate EU control over UK policy and goals.
And do those almost children have a sophisticated explanation considering economic, history, etc. for rejoining?
At that link I see one fool wrote:
That’s fantasizing. Why would the UK be at the center of an industrial renewal? Can there be an industrial renewal with ever increasing energy costs and less reliable energy? How will the UK survive with a new influx of millions of Europeans and illegals?
Same old problem…blame all except the real wrongdoers…No sooner had the reconstructions of the 70s and 80s been completed than deterioration began happening…nothing endures…
Very nice Eric, there is just no end to the amount of damage government can cause.
At least they no longer have the cover of claiming their hands are tied by EU regulations.
This is down to a shortage of beavers. BBC CountryFile categorically stated a re-wilded beaver’s random activity upstream had prevented flooding in a village that flooded several years ago. What more proof do you need.
If Britain continues down this path of rewilding and shutting down the economy, I expect to see some innovative recipes online for snare caught stewed re-wilded beaver.
anyone tried spatchcock beaver?
I’ve got a few cases of Spotted Owl Helper left over now that I’m doing low-carb
I wrote about Somerset Levels flooding in a pictorial essay of the same name in ebook Blowing Smoke back in 2014, when that years flooding was blamed on Climate Change rather than lack of dredging. 12 years later nothing has changed.
Not a good look for the UK.
Rud –
What happened was that the local Rivers Authorities, composed of local experts in managing the local topography, were abolished and responsibility for maintenace passed to know-nothing civil servants at the Department for the Environment. What could possibly go wrong?
Well, central government stopped annual dredging because (they said) of EU anti-pollution regulations. Farmers were no longer allowed to drag silt out of the rhynes and form levees with it on the banks “in case it was toxic”. There was never any proof that it was, but the precautionary principle ruled.
The Levels, for hundreds of years a beautifully managed combination of wetland and farmland, has been struggling to stay above water ever since.
Eric asks: “Why are British politicians still punishing people who live in vulnerable regions, by failing to protect their homes?”. Perhaps the answer is as simple as people do not want to pay higher taxes. Flood protection is costly and is only going to get more expensive in the future. Given that the UK government is running a deficit and people can chose whether or not to live on a flood plan why should the government either borrow more money or raise taxes to maintain a completely artificial environment?
Izaak –
Flood protection was locally financed before central government interfered (see my comments above).
In the early 1970s I paid River Authority rates.
At that time the the Levels were well managed.
For a laugh, Google EV charging stations flooded at Runnymede. Images
I’m sure there are other areas which could be cut, such as renewable subsidies and social services for people who shouldn’t be in Britain, which would free up more than enough money to restart dredging without raising taxes.
Perhaps those of us who live in the UK want our taxes spent wisely and don’t want to pay higher taxes on vanity projects, illegal immigration, people who can earn their own living but choose not to, etc, etc, etc.
For far too long, politicians have been telling us that we can pay less and get more. We fall for it at every election!
Half the problem is all the old knowledge and wisdom on river management has been lost along with the vital individual custodians of the countryside.
This video is quite long (up to end of part 1 is what’s relevant) and about a chalk stream habitat, but he gets onto flood control and management and the changing history of the land use and hence changing flood/drainage management requirements.
https://youtu.be/pwKm7kn9Q7o
Has the left ever solved a problem that it set out to solve?
Nope, but they’ve spent an awful lot of other peoples money trying
They usually manage to create two more for every one they solve.
It’s not a Left / Right thing.
It’s a stupid, arrogant, govern-mental thing; they assume status = knowledge.
The arguments being missed are the arguments that posit that long-term solutions to water management involve successful retention of rain where it falls, allied to reducing peak flow rates and spreading them out over longer periods. Dredging waterways merely means that peak flow rates remain unsustainably high.
Has anyone ever asked whether creating networks of on-contour terraces in the upper reaches of water courses would reduce the peak rates of water flow during storm cycles?
Has anyone asked whether planting trees on the terrace berms near the summits of water courses would also help to slow down the rate of downward flow during storm cycles?
Keeping as much water as possible on land to replenish aquifers is also just as sensible as sending water as quickly as possible back out to the oceans.
Doing nothing vs dredging seems a remarkably false binary to have as the Overton window for discussion.
Brings to mind the photos I took on Bali in 1970 – rice paddies terraced up some pretty steep hillsides.
Funny thing – nature tends to return to normal.
A repeating problem in an area east of Vancouver BC because dikes around Sumas Sumas Prairie were not maintained properly and pumping stations are marginal.
The area was a lake, drained and diked.
The Nooksack River tends to flood into Abbotsford, did in 2000 but officials did not act to prevent flooding the next time – which came in 2021 and to some extend last fall.
The Nooksack drains much of Mt. Baker’s slopes, flows past Sumas WA out into Puget Sound.
Weather researcher Cliff Mass explained how high rainfall does occur occasionally, in his blog.
Roads get washed out in first heavy rain relative to their construction:
did the first spring after a new road was constructed from Tumbler Ridge in NE BCIn the 1950s in that region a bridge over a creek washed out, was rebuilt higher, a few years alter washed out again so was rebuilt even higher.did in SW BC decades after the Coquihalla freeway was built, November 2021 did the deed. Major transportation problem in November 2021 as flooding in Fraser Valley put railways and highways out of use, some freight could come up the coast on the BNSF and Interstate 5 plus some from the north of Vancouver BC, luckily as both those routes were closed for a day or three due water levels along them.Obscure fact – the Fraser Valley extends from the Fraser River’s canyon west southwesterly past Ferndale WA, I-5 and BNSF go past Ferndale.
When winter comes through the Fraser Canyon I-5 past Ferndale is to be avoided – I’ve seen the mess.
The problem is most of the formerly privately built, owned, and maintained canals in the UK were taken over by the Canal and River Trust. With the decline of commercial shipping on the small canals (IIRC the final commercial canal boat trip was circa 1975 but they were almost completely gone by 1965) the only income the CRT and private companies such as Peel Holdings have to maintain their canals comes from the licenses they sell to private boat owners and hire boat (rental) companies and marinas, along with fees for some of the holding tank pump outs and water supplies.
January 1st 2025 there was a massive collapse of an embankment on the Bridgewater Canal, owned by Peel Holdings, they got it in a package deal with the Manchester Ship Canal (partial purchase 1994, total by 2004). Since having cofferdams put in so stranded boats could get out (after more than a month!) they’ve only started work on repairs Feb. 2026. It had a previous breach in almost the exact same place January 1st or 2nd, sources vary. There was a breach shortly after the canal opened in 1761 and another breach at Manchester in 2005 when a sluice gate failed. No boats were directly damaged by the Jan 2025 breach.
December 22nd 2025 there was a large breach of an embankment on the Llangollen (pronounced clang-hollen) Canal (Shropshire Union Canal). Two boats went into the washout in the Dec breach, with one becoming partially submerged in mud – word is it’s an insurance write-off. Would require a complete strip down to the steel hull and refit. This is a CRT canal and repairs have started after the rather quick recovery of all the stranded boats and the two that went into the hole. But there’s a big reason for that rapidity. Llangollen isn’t just a pleasure canal. The section which blew out is also a major aqueduct transporting water to a reservoir. Several large pumps have been set up, running around the clock, to move water through a lot of pipes around the breach.
There was another breach somewhere in 2025 but it was minor and quickly shored up, though far as I’ve seen from any canaler on YouTube, not properly repaired.
Josh Taylor and his parents were moored close to the January site. Awakened by their boat tipping, he went out to loosen the lines and push their boat away from the bank so it wouldn’t ground on the angled silt built up along the side. As 2025 came to a close, the CRT was closing the higher parts of the canal network, claiming the water shortage was due to drought. The Taylors had moved down the Llanghollen – just in time to get stuck again.
The canals’ problem isn’t drought. It’s all the lock doors and gates made of ancient wood that haven’t been repaired or replaced in decades. Most of them constantly leak around, or through, some even have small trees growing on them in accumulated dirt.
The maximum length for a narrowboat on UK canals is 72 feet. But the longest boat that can travel through all the locks is 57 feet. Some claim 58 feet can go, by careful angling in the shortest locks. Then there’s the widebeam vs narrowboat. Narrow standard width is 6′ 10″. It used to be a full 7 feet but lack of maintenance/rebuilding on some of the stone or brick walled locks has seen them squeeze in far enough a 7 footer can get stuck. Widebeams are 10 to 12 feet but some go up to 14. they can only travel on the newer (typically built in the 1800’s and 1900’s) wider canals.
Watching canalers on YouTube, you get to see a lot of the UK one would never see from road or rail. But you also see the decrepit state the canal system has fallen into without the benefit of commercial shipping.
Raising the license fees would only accelerate the decline because that would drive too many long term or full time boaters off the canals, and the prices for rentals would have to go way up.
The way to fix it all is from committed investors willing to put a lot of money into improvements of the entire system. Dredge all of it. Line it all with concrete. Widen wherever possible to take 10 foot wide boats and make 10 foot the widebeam standard. Rebuild every lock that can’t take a 10 foot wide boat. The old stones and bricks could be salvaged and used to line the sides of the new canals and down to the operating water line of the new canal walls. The old brick bridges that aren’t wide enough for a widebeam, give them the London Bridge treatment. New concrete construction, faced with the old brick, but not relocated to Lake Havasu, Arizona. The most difficult part would be the tunnels which can only pass narrowboats. Some can only take boats one way so reservations have to be made to travel each direction. There’s at least one canal just wide enough two narrowboats can pass but still not enough space for even a 10 foot widebeam. Opening the tunnels and the canals through them, for 10 foot wide boats would be a huge upgrade.
To support all that expansion, there would need to be canal plazas dotted along the canals, with shops, showers, secure car parks, water supply, holding tank pump outs, boat turnarounds (they call them winding holes, short i as in blowing air, not long i as in cranking a music box) and various other amenities for tourists and live aboard boaters. Some could be set up as mini marinas for hire boat companies to do shorter one way rentals. For example if there’s a hireboat company in Manchester and you want to take a boat trip to Leeds, but don’t have enough time to turn around and go back to Manchester, a drop off mooring in Leeds could have the rental operating where the next renter could go aboard and take the boat back to Leeds, or on to another drop off at Blackburn. The rental companies could have a person at each drop point to go aboard to inspect, clean, take care of water, pump out, restock supplies etc. Hire boats could cruise around the network for weeks before returning to home base. Put a payment terminal on every rental boat and run them like Lime or Bird electric scooters and bikes.
Modernizing the canals and making them attractive and accessible to more people, while preserving their 18th and 19th century style is how the canals will survive.
The UK has approximately 4,700 miles of navigable canals,
While specific costs can vary, budgeting between £1 million and £3 million per mile is a reasonable estimate for widening a UK canal, depending on the project’s complexity and location.
A recent project to restore the “missing mile” of the Stroudwater Navigation received £6.4 million in funding, which included various restoration efforts beyond just widening.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvgmd1egk65o
Well, maybe Italy should allow the Pontine Marshes to return bringing with them malaria. /s
I was going to comment but having run the gamut of iffy ads to get here I’ve decided not to.
The surface flooding of recent years here in the 21st century Britain is entirely due to an EU rule that banned the dredging of water ways by defining the dredge spoil extracted toxic waste that must be land filled in controlled and expensive tipping places.
Prior to the rules introduced by the EU environmentalists in late 1990s spoil from dredging of rivers and streams was simple and beneficially spread on the local farmers fields providing rich beneficial soil nutrients. Once the EU made that practice illegal and disposal of spoil expensive the river and waterways were left to silt up and hence surface flooding of areas every time there is a decent rainfall.
The Somerset levels were particularly prone to flooding for obvious reasons. They had a brief respite when the then government minister back in 2014, refused to be EU compliant and actually restored the flood protection dykes pumps and gates plus dredged the silted channels. Since then the levels have been protected, but that will not last forever. The rewilding and returning to nature wetlands crews, sorry I mean cranks, still operating in the UK. will do all they can to flood the levels again. You just can’t get enough habitat for wading birds these days…apparently.
After the 2014 floods, parts of The Somerset Levels, underwater for over 6 weeks, were completely devoid of any wildlife for two years ( no moles, voles, shrews, hedgehogs, ants, spiders, earthworms, nesting birds … nothing ); & it took over 5 years to recover.
Acting to reduce climate change and helping people and wildlife adapt to its
consequences are at the heart of all that we do.
Environment Agency
And therein lies the problem – misplaced priorities. They want you to leave plants at the edge but then these act as a trap for debris. From rivers round my way there is a lot of debris – vegetation and tree parts that hinder the water flow. If they want areas with vegetation then a solution from us in forestry is to create the equivalent of scallops on rides – create some pools off the main stream for vegetation to grow. Dredging should not be confused with de-silting as that entails deeping a channel as opposed to clearing it. There is of course lots of stupidity such as the possibility of classing the silt as ‘waste’ and bringing a huge disposal bill but then there is always fly-tipping and your local organised crime rep can probably help there.