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Sunday 9 February 2014

The Somerset Floods....

Just found this 


Sheesh!!! - awful music - the Benny Hill theme tune would be better! More later - it's going to be a busy day - plenty of fine intemperate language being thrown around :-)

It looks like the Twitter hashtag #p45snotpumps might start getting a bit of a workout! try in combination with @DavidJordanEA  ;-)

SkyNews are chewing on David Jordan (Avoncliff link),  as is David Rose in the Daily Mail 

There's two people conspicuously missing in the present kerfuffle - "The Minister" George Eustice and Paul Leinster EA Chief Exec.  Bing!-Bong! Paging Mr George Eustice and Professor Paul Leinster !

For our Somerset readers we can reccomend this piece from Autonomous Mind blog detailing Barbara Young's involvement in your present misfortune.


Simultaneously and quite bizarrely Sheila Wheeler has been absent from her post at Somerset Council apparently since November 2013 - at £160,000 a year that's let's say 4 months ....  = £50,000  and no explanation ....   The people of Somerset are paying her exorbitant wages (which of course you have to pay to get people of this calibre who would otherwise get more in the private sector) ,  they are entitled to know why she has not been at her place of work for three months.

As you know I rarely pass up an opportunity to knock Chris Smith so here's a reminder of the Lord's blatherings from 2013 and the floods back then.

15 comments:

  1. This saga has been ongoing for years (as outlined by older ex-EA staff). It is a shame it has taken this long to get the necessary public exposure. How many businesses, people and communities have been put out because of the questionable actions of the EA? Millions on the Avon cliff case alone, millions on the dozens of individual cases I tried protecting whilst working inside the EA, and the hundreds of cases over the past several years. We could be talking about billions lost to this one government organisation alone. That isn't even including the large scale abuse by staff (in trusted positions) that have led to much heartache for innocent small businesses, the abuse of working time practices resulting in reduced Agency effective, and the lack of oversight from government which has allowed neglect of important maintenance programmes critical to the protection of communities. Will this lead to proper oversight for once? Will the mainstream media finally begin to pay attention? Will the Agency answer to these failures? According to Eric Pickles, maybe, but only time will tell. All I know from old colleagues still inside, is that this abuse and waste is still ongoing!

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  2. There much focus on Lord Smith whose accused of:

    – Playing “divide and rule” by “trying to set town against country”
    – Letting the EA become “riddled with politically correct” eco-fanatics opposed to dredging
    – Presiding as the organisation “lost its way”
    – Spending 20 times more money on its bloated bureaucracy than on keeping rivers clear

    Fact is, senior management I have had the displeasure of dealing with are just as guilty of these.

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    Replies
    1. One thing that is obvious in 4 years of this is that the arbitrary, self indulgent management usually put fusible links in place between themselves and their deeds - the present unfortunate single point of contact for Avoncliff being a case in point - one has to feel for him - must be a stressy as ....

      The culture appears almost irretrievably damaged by the conniving of the middle and senior management - we have FoI stuff that peeks behind the curtain - and what we see there is not very impressive at all - "Innovation Panels"? and hidden documents, gambling on outcomes with public money, a capital expenses account littered with huge bills from barristers, costings for works that are quite simply deranged.

      As I'm fond of saying at the moment - Chris Smith is simply an inflated blimp towed as a PR decoy by the toxic middle and senior management who are out of control and believe themselves untouchable - they'll throw David Jordan overboard too to save their skins.

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    2. Jeremy Graydon should have stopped J alldrick J adams P sowter F ireland D jordan and of course B johnson and of coarse my friend John Sweeny all of these have wasted maliciously,over £1.5 million pounds of public money. P45s all round. I suppose we should put up all our CTV videos on you tube next that will raise eyebrows John will like that embarrassed or what ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,

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  3. Great one of AMEC and Ben johnson AMEC ????????

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  4. Notice Lienster is keeping his head down.

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  5. Do you have recordings of all EA meetings? including David Jordan WOW you tube would be hot? GO ON GIVE US A TASTER ????

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  6. That bloody stupid man David Jordan should go, the sooner the better. SAVE US TAX PAYERS SOME MONEY

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  7. Lord Chris Smith visits Bridgwater Bay NNR bird sanctuary that cost £31m and then as the local MP, Ian Liddell-Grainger, said it went downhill. It is very difficult to go downhill as Steart is no more than a couple of metres above the river level, quite a feat by Chris Smith to plumb deeper depths but he's with the EA so not impossible to imagine. Simple arithmetic = £31m to protect birds, which float, / £4m for farmland, cattle, sheep and people, which don't float gives this. The rivers in Somerset could have been dredged 7 3/4 times. Of course if you use a non EA Framework contractor the cost would only be £35k and you could get it done almost 886 times which would probably have covered most of the rivers in England.

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  8. If a private contractor will do it for £35,000 that is less than 1/3rd of David Jordan's pay. Sack him for incompetence tomorrow by the time the floods have receded you will have saved that much. Rivers in the Somerset Levels dredged at no added cost to the Taxpayer. Get rid of Lord Smith and a few other ineffectual (corrupt?) senior managers and the whole of the country can be cleared.

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  9. How much more will this cost , in your opinion who is responsible for this use of public funds. This is hardly value for money £10,000 for £ 1.0p taken on this licence application ?

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  10. Depends on the licence. We are ready for the decision the way they operate more than likely back to JR and another ?

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  11. Happy Birthday Consent Order
    You are now two years old.
    The promise to be completed by the EA "as quickly as possible" seems to indicate the ability of the people in EA head Offices to respond to anything in a timely manner, including flooding.
    I think it also give some indication of EA Senior Managements contempt for the legal systems of this land.

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  12. Inside the EA have updated news of £300k spent on staff bonuses, six-figure redundancies (even thought staff increased from 10,000+ to 11,000+), £250k on expensive private venues, £30k on a gay parade, etc. Real eye-opener.

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Get it off yer chest - please keep it civil