I read with interest the article in The Voice, (June 27) with regard to the River Welland flood prevention system.
Our family farm is on the north side of the River Welland (in fact we graze 50 acres of river banks.)
With regard to the Environment Agency investigating as to why the siphons are not currently working, I can confirm that they were not working at Easter 1998 when the river was overtopping the banks in several places between our farm and Crowland.
Luckily, the tides were low and the water continued to flow out towards the sea in Spalding.
The “automatic” siphons were installed some time after March 1978. Until then, the system to let water into The Wash to relieve pressure on the river banks was operated manually.
With regard to delays in repairing the breach due to ground nesting birds and the “discovery” of asbestos in the river, I can only comment that there were no ground nesting birds at the beginning of January when the breach occurred.
Furthermore, the agency does not seem to be too concerned about ground nesting birds when mowing recently off Cowbit Bank and Deeping High Bank.
As far as the discovery of asbestos, it should not have been a surprise since either the Environment Agency or its predecessor put it there.
It has to be said that in 1947 when hundreds of acres of farm land were flooded in the Crowland/Postland area, huge numbers of men (many of them volunteers) with little more than shovels and the inspired use of ex army tanks, repaired the severely breached wash bank and, within six years, the course of the Welland was partly straightened and the Coronation Channel had been constructed and opened.
Jane Cooke
Deeping High Bank
