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 30/04/2008, 10:46 AM
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Amy Soyka
Joined on 04/04/2008
Posts 181
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Re: Shoreline Management - a threat to the Broads?
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The most likley thing to happen will be that the sand will be dredged and sold off to Denmark once flooded...
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30/04/2008, 8:07 PM
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nevermind
Joined on 28/05/2007
Posts 1,496
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Re: Shoreline Management - a threat to the Broads?
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I take your last sentence as gospel, oh pure one, lets not make imagination a part of the libel business, its dirty enough.
Funnily I think the same about this subject than yourself and I was not suggesting anything you read into my post.
But jesters never were that funny, or happy for that matter. nevermind
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04/05/2008, 12:49 PM
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Jill
 
Joined on 15/08/2005
Norfolk
Posts 1,835
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Re: Shoreline Management - a threat to the Broads?
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This might be the way to get that money
Treasury 'made £525m from floods'
By David Thomas
Last Updated: 2:59PM BST 21/04/2008
Campaigners have accused the Government of making a profit of almost half a billion pounds from the floods that devastated parts of Britain last year.
The TaxPayers' Alliance (TPA) says that because of VAT charged on home repairs, the Treasury made £525 million from taxpayers for work carried out to rebuild property damaged by the flooding in the summer.
Tewkesbury Abbey in Gloucestershire, one of the areas worst hit by last year's summer floods
At the same time, they say that ministers have only put forward £86 million into a fund to help repair damage in areas such as Yorkshire and Gloucestershire which were worst hit by the weather, meaning it made a "profit" of £439 million.
The campaign group, together with the Federation of Master Builders and other groups, has launched a coalition called "Cut the VAT" to get the tax streamlined down to five per cent from its current 17.5 per cent rate.
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Matthew Elliot, the chief executive of the TaxPayers' Alliance, said: "It is disgusting that the Treasury has profited from the misery and suffering of others.
"VAT on house repairs is harming our housing stock and punishing good behaviour, now it is penalising people who had suffered a natural disaster. The taxman has sunk to a new low with this shameful tax grab."
Figures from the Association of British Insurers suggest that the average VAT bill for repairs after the floods was between £5,250 and £7,000. A cut in VAT to five per cent could have lowered this to £1,500, the TaxPayers' Alliance claims.
Brian Berry, the director of external affairs at the Federation of Master Builders, added: "What message does this send to people affected by last summer's floods?
"It is clearly very wrong that the Government should be making such large amounts of money out of other people's misfortune. Examples like this only go to show what an unfair tax VAT is.
"If the Government really wanted to get these flood-damaged communities back on their feet, cutting VAT would be a very good place to start."
Widespread flooding occurred throughout Britain in June and July last year, devastating thousands of businesses and tens of thousands of homes, and further affecting up to a million people. Eleven people were killed.
The insurance industry has already paid out more than £3 billion for 180,000 claims.
Some houses were so badly flooded that homeowners are still living in caravans in their driveways as repairs continue.
The most severe floods occurred across Northern Ireland, Yorkshire, the Midlands, Gloucestershire, Worcestershire, Oxfordshire, Berkshire and South Wales.
Conservative MP Graham Stuart, whose Beverley and Holderness constituency in East Yorkshire was badly hit by the floods, said he calculated the amount recouped by the Government to be around £100 million. But he said even that was too much.
"It is a heck of a lot of money going into the Treasury at a time when many of my constituents are still homeless or living in caravans under a great deal of stress," he added. The Treasury yesterday defended its handling of the flood and the repair efforts following the rain, saying that last year's Comprehensive Spending Review had increased the amount of money available for bolstering flood defences.
A spokesman added: "The UK has the widest and most generous range of reduced and zero VAT rates in Europe, saving UK consumers over £28 billion every year."
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05/05/2008, 1:01 PM
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nevermind
Joined on 28/05/2007
Posts 1,496
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Re: Shoreline Management - a threat to the Broads?
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This might be the way to get that money !
What way would that be Jill? The Government has offered 7 million to patch up places around Happisburgh.
So how do you 'get that money' from the treasury then Jill? Have I missed the Walcott uprising?
The insurance companies already have spread the increasing risks on to all premiums and any money the treasury can lay its hands on, is as good as gone.
This Government promised an increase of 150 million for sea defenses annually, between the year 2006-2011, a reaction to last years floods, but as yet this money has to materialise.
Scientists and experts reckon that the risks are going up exponentially by a factor of 20 each year, equally so they argue the annual expenditure should keep pace with risks.
It has become abundantly clear that we can not rely on the Government for funding and any time spent on whining for sticky plaster funding is really wasted. The future of the broads and the Norfolk coastline are linked, as is the Wash basin and the future of the fenlands.
If the fenlands ever flood, we not only loose our ability to feed ourselves, we as well let half of Norfolk go to the sea.
A new kind Waterworld, similar to that of the Watten islands in front of the Dutch and German coast is a distinct possibility in future if we do nothing.
I cannot understand those who just sit putt and wait for paultry handouts. nevermind
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05/05/2008, 3:43 PM
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nevermind
Joined on 28/05/2007
Posts 1,496
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Re: Shoreline Management - a threat to the Broads?
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 Jill wrote: | |
Stop being so snidy nevermind
I pointed out that this money was in the Treasury from off the back of Flood victims and insurance companies
If you have missed the Walcott uprising then it is down to your foibles as there has been enough about it on here
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I am not snidy, but you are bragging
Jill, you wrote this:
This might be the way to get that money!
now we would like to know this way Jill, or why did you sensationalise in the first place?
nevermind
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05/05/2008, 6:34 PM
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keith gerrard
Joined on 16/04/2004
Posts 9,985
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Re: Shoreline Management - a threat to the Broads?
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05/05/2008, 7:37 PM
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Jill
Joined on 15/08/2005
Norfolk
Posts 1,835
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Re: Shoreline Management - a threat to the Broads?
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That is rich coming from you Keith but I can laugh about it
No, I posted that as I thought it was an important subject, that the government has creamed off so much money from flood victims and then pleads poverty when flood defences are required.
If sense prevails the money should go straight to these projects to save vulnerable areas, all areas river and coastal communities.
I was shocked to see how much money was involved.
That was my intention until it was hijacked.
Worries over, well on my accord anyway
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05/05/2008, 11:27 PM
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gardener
Joined on 04/10/2007
Posts 1,051
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Re: Shoreline Management - a threat to the Broads?
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Now here's something to think about. The National Trust is using money made available to them by a company in lieu of Landfill Tax to buy over a hundred acres of productive Fenland near Wicken Fen in Cambs. The aim is to reverse the drainage and let the area of productive land revert to "natural " Fenland habitat. This is only a hundred acres or so-at the moment and some may say it is only to create a glorified park for the overdeveloped city of Ely but...
Bear me if you will...
This habitat they will be recreating is to comprise reed beds, sedge and rush fens, open water and wet grasslands. Now where do we all know a habitat just like that folks? Yes, part of that chunk of East Norfolk coastline and Broads that Natural England thinks isn't worth saving.
So why, I wonder, is it not possible to divert more of the environment payments that landfill and quarry companies have to make, into flood protection, saving what we have got instead of trying to recreate a fen drained nearly two hundred years ago?
It's a mad world.
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05/05/2008, 11:36 PM
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gardener
Joined on 04/10/2007
Posts 1,051
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Re: Shoreline Management - a threat to the Broads?
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Plus, I hear tell that every project the EA manages costs umpteen times what it should because of their lack of business sense, bureaucracy and overmanning so that funds for essential projects just don't go far enough. If gangs of blokes with spades and donkeys could keep Waxham, Sea Palling and Horsey dunes in shape year after year as a sea defence why is it so difficult for a bloke with a digger? Is it because they use ten or twenty blokes with diggers and a legion of pen pushers for all manner of assessments instead of having said bloke on £25 K or so a year go out every day and shove a bit more sand up the beach?
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06/05/2008, 9:28 AM
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nevermind
Joined on 28/05/2007
Posts 1,496
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Re: Shoreline Management - a threat to the Broads?
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| john wrote: | |
I see that the Environment Agency has now apologised for issueing the statement re flooding and the Broads.Amazing,just 1 hour before the Parliamentary debate takes place in the House of Commons.John
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Tehy know exactly how the wheels are turning and you can expect a polished form of remodelling this morning.
Jill, the headline was added by you, not the Telegraph who published the story, so why did you sensationalise it, that money is gone to be used at the tresuries behest.
It will be seen what happens this morning, I expect a significant step back to more sticky plaster funding, but not one of them will contemplate paying more than the allocated 150 million/per year extra.
Indeed I expect them to mention this sum over and over again, the absolution phrase of the day. nevermind
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EDP24 Forums » EDP24 General » News » Re: Shoreline Management - a threat to the Broads?
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