AS often happens, the juxtaposition of two events has set me thinking. Firstly, my son sent me a link to The Flood; secondly, later that day, I read an item on an MSN news site, the gist of which being that the government was actively considering making over large areas of The Fens and Lincolnshire to establish two new major reservoirs, because rainfall had been below average for the last few months. I have to declare an interest as I have known The Fens all my life, lived near Ely for 25 years and worked on water resources in the area for two years.
First, the film. It was produced in 1963 by the Children’s Film Foundation (CFF) and is based on the extensive flooding that occurred in 1947, before major defensive works during the ‘50s and ‘60s. It centres on a fictional family farm located between Ely and Wisbech. The farm was typical of a now non-existent small mixed farm, which has since been replaced by major large-scale farming, employing far fewer permanent workers and dependent on large numbers of seasonal foreign labour. The story is somewhat along the lines of a Famous Five story, but, being done on a recognisable location, is somehow more authentic.
From what I know of major floods in the Fens, the film correctly reflects the way families and the emergency services responded. It was leavened with a certain degree of awareness and propaganda, such as the need to stock-up with food and other supplies (e.g. matches), not driving too fast on flooded roads, and emphasised the importance of communication (through the radio and by telephone at the time). It subtly introduced the advisability to be able to swim and practice lifesaving to rescue a child who had fallen from the boat into the floodwaters. All this was done in a non-didactic manner, and, being made for older children, it assumed a level of general education that is unfortunately not available in the 12–15-year-old audience today. Early in the film, the father is asked by his daughter, ‘Why are the rivers flooding?’ His straightforward answer: ‘Too much rain in too short a time, and nowhere for it to go.” Today, the conversation would have been a cue for a lecture on climate change!
The Fens have been shaped by more than 2,000 years of human activity, including settlement, drainage and water management. There is evidence of drainage and reclamation from the late Iron Age, and the Romans built a canal, the Carr Dyke from just north of Cambridge to the Nene, to circumvent the vast marshy area and allow for grain transportation northward. In the mid-16th century, the basic geography of the Fenland rivers and drains was defined by Dutch engineers working for major landowners, which included Oliver Cromwell and the Duke of Bedford. This caused significant social friction over the threat to local communities between more traditional uses, like wild-fowling, and the construction work. A major water transfer from Denver Sluice, opened in 1982, transfers significant volumes of water from the Ouse over the watershed and into reservoirs in south Essex. Nowadays, The Fens are a major area for agricultural production, particularly for the intensive production of salad vegetables, potatoes and sugar beet, closely linked to supermarket outlets.
The latest plans as described in a recent MSN news item, are as follows: ‘Two new reservoirs will be pushed through the planning system by overriding local councils, the Government has announced – as ministers warn of an “infrastructure crisis”.
‘The UK has not built a major reservoir for more than 30 years, with strain on water services seen as a key factor in stopping the construction of new homes in certain areas.
‘On Thursday, the Government will confirm that two reservoirs, one in Cambridgeshire and one in Lincolnshire, will be built under a new fast-track process with Environment Secretary Steve Reed overseeing the planning application.
‘They will both be built by private water companies and will be subject to consultation before they are formally approved. The Fens Reservoir, near the towns of Chatteris and March, is expected to be finished in 2036 and the Lincolnshire Reservoir near Sleaford is scheduled to be up and running in 2040.’
Anyone travelling between Ely and Peterborough by rail in the winter months will pass over the Ouse Washes and will see a vast expanse of water stretching away on either side. The function of the washlands between the two canalised, parallel sections of the Great Ouse stretching 16 miles between Earith and Denver Sluice, is to store flood water flowing from the upstream catchment. Seeing so much water, it is easy to assume that it seems an obvious solution to providing much needed water for summer irrigation and water supply, but as I have touched upon already, water in The Fens has been perennially difficult to handle and is already managed in a highly engineered manner.
This plan is the latest in a long history of major schemes for the use of Fenland water resources. In my lifetime, there have been plans for a Wash Barrage to store water from the Ouse, Welland and Nene rivers. This never came to fruition. Then, there was a far-reaching scheme for the use of groundwater from the chalk aquifer in parts of West Norfolk, West Suffolk and Cambridgeshire, which was adjudged by consultants in a feasibility study to have excess water, able to be skimmed off by 1-2 metres, provide adequate water for a thirsty South East England. It was quickly realised that this would be disastrous for water quality, wildlife and the general environmental status of rivers and wetlands, which are closely, but not necessarily, linked in their seasonal responses. The network of abstraction boreholes that were sunk became very useful for support of river flows, particularly during the extended droughts the 1990s.
Over recent decades, conflicts have been increasing between agriculture and its concomitant close water control, and the demands and aspirations of recreation and conservation. The latter focus has been growing steadily from small starts at places like Wicken Fen and Welney Wetland Centre, as have conservation interests and pressure groups, and The Great Fen Project has been gaining traction. Although not concerning the immediate area of the proposed reservoirs, with project partners including the Environment Agency and Natural England and focussing on peat recovery and rewilding, this will provide a strong opposition. The proposed short-cutting and avoidance of the established planning process will be a hard job to carry through. The opposition will benefit from large local support for the Liberal and the Green Party.
Although the population working on the land has drastically declined since the time of the film, there has been no shortage of demand for housing, especially from people working at high-tech centres, such as Cambridge and Peterborough. As well as creating a demand for housing, there has been a vast increase in local commuting traffic. Construction demand has also been a spur to large scale gravel extraction along river floodplains. The Fens is not a deserted marshy wilderness as those in the Westminster bubble may imagine.
In short, there are a lot of, often conflicting, facets to the development. The government’s declared intention to drastically alter the planning process will not be a popular one, and indeed should be strongly opposed. It seems to me that the sudden announcement of the reservoir plans is a rushed, knee-jerk response, typical of this government’s response to a short-term problem, in this case arising from a spell of dry weather. One needs to take a rational view of the timescale of construction: 10 to 15 years, and a lot of time will no doubt spent in legal wrangling. Water management in The Fens is a complex problem and lasting solutions have always been evolutionary – let it stay that way.
