I am thoroughly bemused by yesterday's media mini-frenzy about the unveiling of a proposed £2.3 billion spend on flood defences, including £193 million to prevent flooding along the Thames estuary.
I am interested in the Thames estuary, having spent a lot of time in its company. I have sailed and motored up it, down it and across it, anchored in its creeks and occasionally run aground on its mud. I have ducked round the back of container ships, cooed over the rust brown sails of Thames barges, peered nervously at barely visible, jerry-built floats made from old bottles and scraps of material that warned we were approaching an array of potentially propeller grabbing fishing gear, and flinched as buckets of Thames estuary poured down the back of my neck. I have slept, sunbathed, tacked, emergency gybed, and managed to prepare mugs of packet soup in preposterously boisterous sea conditions the length and breadth of the Thames estuary. I have skirted round the ominous remains of the SS Richard Montgomery, recalled Conrad while lying in Stangate Creek through an oily sunset, watched seagulls dance, counted the flashes of navigation buoys, and been glad to make out the looming bulk of the Bradwell power station. I have stared seals in the eye, and panicked about whether we were really only in nine feet of water or whether the echo sounder had gone right round the clock.
I have walked along the seawalls, seen queen bumblebees hunting for a nest sight, heard skylarks sing, and watched a barn owl hunting before dusk. I have drunk in many pubs, all curious, some insanitary. I have poked nosily about boatyards in winter, bemoaned the disappearance of strange, small chandleries, and whiled away gale bound afternoons in obscure museums and a cinema so tiny the auditorium opened straight on to the street. I have seen children fishing for crabs and adults catching the sun, night phosphorescence on the water, and heard the eerie cries of curlews and the strident calls of oyster catchers. I have walked to the end of Clacton pier and stood eating ice cream in the rain. I have gently regretted the disappearance of the light ships, to be replaced by automated beacons.
So I like the Thames estuary. I very much hope that an airport never gets built on it, and the migrating birds and tortuous winding creeks of mud can be left in peace. And I was curious to know what work was planned with the £193 million. The reports on the broadsheet and BBC websites didn't go into any specifics beyond the bald headline, £193 million for new flood defences in the Thames estuary, while the news seemed to pass by East Anglian Daily Times completely. So I Googled it, and after scrolling through links to the unhelpful articles I'd already looked at, I found one to a site called Building. I wasn't familiar with Building, but it looks like a trade rag for the building industry. And the article I'd found was headlined five bidders in race for £495 million flood defence contract, and dated 28 February 2014. It listed the five bidders shortlisted for the 'massive' Thames Estuary Phase 1 Programme (TEP1) which involved a series of major flood prevention works over a ten year period.
That was confusing. Was the £193 million announced with great fanfare new money in addition to the £495 million already put out to tender with no fanfare at all? Or was yesterday's announcement a re-announcement of something that was already in hand? At that point I thought of looking on the environment agency website, but that didn't really throw a great deal of light on the issue. The new phase one flood defence scheme at the Thames estuary, just one of the 92 schemes in the area getting the green light today, is worth over £62 million. Er, is that the same Thames Estuary Phase 1 Programme that was already out to tender ten months ago? Other schemes include defences at Great Yarmouth, Lowestoft, Clacton and Holland-on-Sea. Memory creaking, I thought I'd already read something months ago in the local paper about new Clacton sea defences getting the go-ahead. Fish tail groynes came into it, I seemed to recall. A little more Googling led me to the website of Volker Stevin who with joint venture partners Boskalis Westminster and Atkins (I have actually heard of Atkins) commenced work on a £36 million sea defence project at Clacton this June, with completion scheduled for autumn 2015, client The Environment Agency, funding including £27 million from that department. So is yesterday's £18.6 million for Clacton more money for extra defences, or part of the £27 million already committed?
I really don't know. I started off interested to know what was planned, and ended up utterly confused, and rather exasperated that not one national news organisation had an environment correspondent that kept track of these projects, and could provide some informed comment on yesterday's much trumpeted announcements.
In a separate development, we have been promised that the inadequate and dreadful A12 will be widened to three lanes as far as Colchester, but since work is not scheduled to start until at least 2020, which would fall into the parliament after next, I think the inhabitants of Essex will believe it when they see it.
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