Drainage grant gives water a firm but polite warning
A £5 million drainage grant will help 18 councils meet higher Internal Drainage Board levies. The money should keep water in approved channels rather than allow it to take up retail in the high street.
Internal Drainage Boards manage water levels in low lying areas. Their work is vital, though their name still suggests three damp men examining a pipe while one says it has always done that.
The support covers levy increases over three financial years. Councils can now protect homes and roads without asking residents to adopt a sandbag or make a monthly payment to a nearby puddle.
Water management gets an emergency cheque
“We take unauthorised water extremely seriously,” said Councillor Brook Puddlethorpe, Cabinet Member for Things Seeping Under Doors. “Any rain found loitering near a retail park will receive a very clear map.”
The grants recognise that drainage costs vary sharply across England. Hilltop councils will receive nothing and have been encouraged to stop looking pleased whenever the forecast turns blue.
Ministers call the funding additional and exceptional. Ordinary funding, by contrast, arrives in sensible shoes and vanishes into a spreadsheet before anyone can locate the biscuits.
Board members will use the money to maintain drainage and flood defences. Britain can then return to its preferred relationship with water, discussing too much of it while holding a mug containing precisely enough.
The puddle accepts the decision provisionally
Officials expect better protection for fields, homes and roads. The rain will consider the proposal carefully, then attend the meeting without reading the papers.
Read the real story: The government announcement about the drainage levy support grant.
