Thanks Derek, you cite another interesting example. My fundamental problem is the headline that ‘we can’t engineer our way out’ of flooding. Engineers put a man on the moon over 50 years ago, and I could cite many other remarkable engineering achievements over the centuries. I do not accept the view that engineers cannot solve the flooding challenges. I believe that by comparison with many other engineering challenges over time, the risk of flooding can be significantly reduced. We just need more support from the stakeholder community to enable engineers to get on with the challenge of designing what’s necessary to reduce flood risk.

I agree with Roger. There was a new housing development constructed in the 80’s at Sudbury where the local stream would have been overloaded by the intense run off from the new estate.
A small slotted dam was incorporated in the local stream to restrict the down stream flows
The peak flows were stored locally on open ground forming part of the estate.
All landowners with streams that feed into local rivers must be encouraged to construct storage reservoirs on their land to store valuable surface water on a similar basis.
Farmers in particular would benefit during the summer months with a valuable source of water for growing their crops during the long dry spells which are happening with climate change.
Grant aid provided for such schemes would be a more effective way of reducing the down stream floods in towns than expensive bank raising
If this could be done in the 80s why can’t it be done now?