Ivydene Gardens Home: Mission Statement

Chris Garnons-William's mission is to educate and inform as many people on how to garden successively using organic methods and companion planting. This involves design, construction and maintenance of private gardens.

As a non-income-generating-for-me-or-Ivydene-Horticultural-Services hobby it also involves creating Photo Galleries to compare the flower, foliage, shape/habit, fruit/seeds and in flower beds of all cultivated and native to UK wildflowers either grown and/or sold in the UK to aid your choice of plants for mail-order directly from the supplier to you.

Tree Facts

• According to the Kent and Medway Landcover Survey in 2003, 12.5% of Kent was covered in woodland in 1999.
• Trees help reduce the 'greenhouse effect' by absorbing CO2. One acre of trees removes 2.6 tons of CO2 per year.
• 2 mature trees (or a 25 feet by 25 feet lawn) provides enough oxygen for a family of 4.
• One person causes about 10 tonnes of Carbon Dioxide to be emitted a year. 1 tree removes about 1 tonne of CO2 per year. Planting 30 trees per person will remove each person's carbon debt for that year.
• 20 trees can offset the polluting effects of 1 car driven 60 miles.
• The presence of trees can increase the value of a property by up to 20%.

If you can maintain your garden to produce as much oxygen as possible then you and the others on this planet can breathe.
The Department of Geographical Sciences of the University of Maryland in America has produced a map of Global Forest Change between 2000 and 2012. In that time the Earth lost a combined 'forest' the size of Mongolia, or enough trees to completely cover the UK 6 times. As of January 2014, we are increasing vehicle use and creating more people with decreasing the vegetation on the Earth to produce the oxygen for us and those vehicles to use. Trees are defined as all vegetation taller than 500 cms (192 inches) in height.

From The Times of 15th March 2006 :-

"Food transport now accounts for a quarter of all HGV miles in the UK and is responsible for almost 2 per cent of our annual carbon emissions. Air freight is the biggest culprit - the number of planes rushing us our Ugandan mange tout and Brazilian figs has doubled in 10 years".

• The high-food-miles food that the journalist had consumed on a Saturday and Sunday had travelled 153,290 miles from the producer abroad via the supermarket to his home. If each item he had eaten only weighed 4 ounces per mile travelled, and he weighed 200 lbs, then his weight of food would have travelled 191.6 miles. If he had used his car to travel this distance, then it would need 64 trees for those 2 days and 11656 trees per year to offset the pollution created.
• The low-food-miles food he had consumed for a different 2 days had originated from this country and it had travelled 899 miles. If he had used his car to travel 1.1miles, then it would need 0.37 trees and 69 trees per year to offset the pollution created.
• From the Countryside Survey 2000 produced by DEFRA, there is 1.5 million hectares of Broadleaved woodland and 1.4 million hectares of Coniferous Woodland in the UK in 2000. Broadleaved woodland only has its foliage for 2/3rds of the year. There is 2.47 acres to the hectare and about 60 million population in the UK, which gives an average of 0.1 acres of usable woodland per person per year. If a tree is planted every 5 yards, then 195 trees could be planted per acre, giving 19.5 trees per person.
• Even if we ate food produced in this country, we would still require 3 times the woodland cover that we have and 600 times the woodland cover if we ate that food imported from abroad.

If you could produce any of your own food on your own land, this would produce a reduction in pollution.

"From: Gabbie Joyce <gjoyce@gardenorganic.org.uk>

Subject: Re: Master Gardener promotion

Date: 14 February 2013 19:57:53 GMT

To: Christopher Garnons-Williams <chris@ivydenegardens.co.uk>

Hello Chris

Many thanks for taking time to respond to our letter.  I've just had a look at your website and it certainly is comprehensive. Well done on creating and maintinaing such a database of detailed information.  I will certainly share it amoung my Master Gardener volunteers, who may find it of benefit.  

Thank you for your kind offer to share images. Being a programme involving members of the public, we have to adhere to very strict guidelines regarding permissions and are unable to share them outside of our programme generated media.

Kind regards

Gabbie

Gabbie Joyce

Co-ordinator for Norfolk & Medway

Master Gardener Programme

Garden Organic

Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse, Dereham, Norfolk. NR20 4DR

Mobile: 07584 583803

Email: gjoyce@gardenorganic.org.uk

Web: www.mastergardeners.org.uk

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/NorfolkMasterGardeners - for the latest news

The joy of my role is that I'm often out and about meeting lovely people. I usually visit my emails daily, however if your enquiry is very urgent, you are welcome to contact Philip Turvil, Programme Manager, on pturvil@gardenorganic.org.uk

Master Gardener Programme - volunteer network supporting people and communities grow fruit and vegetables in their gardens and on local communal land.

We are recruiting - Ask me about it.

----- Original Message -----

From: chris@ivydenegardens.co.uk

To: gjoyce@gardenorganic.org.uk

Sent: Wednesday, 13 February, 2013 12:52:24 PM

Subject: Master Gardener promotion

Dear Ms Joyce,

Thank you for your letter of 12 February.

As an organic gardener, I have maintained , designed and constructed private gardens for the last 21 years, including 7 years of vegetable growing for a client.

In my spare time, I am creating a small non-income-generating-for-me website www.ivydenegardens.co.uk part of which aims to compare the flower, foliage, shape, fruit/seeds, in flower beds / landscape/ pond /stream of every wildflower and cultivated plant either grown and/or sold in the UK. The comments row in each Plant Description Page aims to have links to external mail-order suppliers or nurseries. The member of the public contacts and pays that supplier for direct delivery to their own home. No commission is paid by me to that supplier or that supplier to me for this free advertising service.

I do not have the time to help others in the field, but can promote the information through my hobby of a website.  The Companion Planting Topic may be 1 of the useful topics for your volunteers.

If you would be prepared to share photos of the plants from seed to end of life with the copyright permissions as stated in http://www.ivydenegardens.co.uk/copyrightpermiss.html , I could then show them in one of the existing 150 topics or create a new one if necessary.

Yours faithfully,

Chris Garnons-Williams

--

Registered Charity No. 298104. Company Limited by Guarantee. Registered in Cardiff No. 2188402.

Garden Organic is the new working name of the Henry Doubleday Research Association.

Ryton Organic Gardens, Coventry, Warwickshire, United Kingdom. CV8 3LG"

What a shame that as a member of Garden Organic, The Royal Horticultural Society and The National Trust, it seems that information or help can only go 1 way.

Still it gives me a little job to do in my spare time to provide this educational service free of charge by taking my own photos, then finding out the optimum growing condtions myself before inserting that information at my expense into my website so that the mail-order nurseries throughout the world can receive the orders from the public using the thumbnail, description and list choices in my website. Unfortunately most of those suppliers or organisations like Garden Organic, The Royal Horticultural Society and The National Trust will not provide the photos or growing conditions to this website free of charge

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Brookweed Fruit

Table Item Number

G-A
Gas Explosions from incorrectly installed Gas Boilers

Table G - Gas Explosions from incorrectly installed Gas Boilers

G-A - Incorrect Replacement of Gas Boiler and Incorrect Maintenance by Gas Maintenance Engineers

Gas boilers are being replaced in Kent, England with the return pipe being connected to the flow of the boiler instead of the return connection. This means that a single electrical circuit is checking for overheating of the boiler and switching it off until it cools down and then restarting it. Because of the incorrect flow the other sensors in the boiler cannot operate due to receiving the cooling return water than the just heated water from the boiler. My Gas Service Engineer informed me in June 2020 that he has found this in other client's homes and that they had refused to redress the situation.
 

The following is from All Flowers per Month Site Map Page for details of it being done to my house and my Gas Servicing Engineers not finding it until 5 years after its replacement. Interesting that some British Gas Engineers cannot replace Gas Boilers correctly and are not concerned that it then explode. When I enquired before to the manufacturers, I was told that a switch had been installed that if the boiler was incorrectly piped, then it would not work - this does not seem to be the case.
 

G-B
If you have a gas-fired boiler in your house there are 1 or 2 details you need to know

If you have a gas-fired boiler in your house there are 1 or 2 details you need to know:-

1. In October 2002 our boiler was replaced with a Gloworm 100FF. The householder is then supplied with an instruction manual for the boiler and its maintenance.

Diagram 3.2 from supplied Instruction Manual

You may need a Heating Engineer to verify the correct positioning of your pipework to the boiler. If you ask that person to switch on the boiler and when it is working to place one hand on each pipe that goes to the boiler. The one that gets hot first should be called the Flow pipe. Then, check that what that person calls the Flow pipe corresponds with the same position in the Manual supplied by the Boiler Manufacturer.

Remember to employ the Heating Engineer to do this as that person is the expert!

Photo taken on 10 April 2012. In March 2012, it was discovered by a heating engineer that the return pipe from the House Pipework was connected to the Flow side of the boiler. As can be seen above, the pipework has been changed to the correct way, so that now the hot water output by the boiler goes out and up the FLOW side of Diagram 3.2.

A point to remember - both the Cut off Thermostat and the Output Water Thermostat are positioned close to the output of the boiler. This does of course mean that when that is where the water is coming in rather than going out of the boiler, then neither thermostat will function as intended. Thus kettling and boiling of the boiler can occur without the boiler switching itself off.

Another point is that some of the more modern boilers have electronic systems that report a fault if the water-flow is incorrect and stop the boiler from operating. The boiler manufacturer is contacted by the installer about this problem for its solution, although the fault code may be included in the Instruction Manual (all new boilers should be supplied with reading glasses to aid the installer!) which is to be supplied to the homeowner by the installer.

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The boiler has been serviced each year by different heating engineers. I have seen some engineers go as far as to remove the baffles as in Diagram 10.3 , clean the baffles and vacuum the front of the heat exchanger, before reassembling the baffles and putting the boiler front back on.

Different heating engineers - including the ones who had installed the bolier in the first place - from October 2002 to March 2012 had not noticed that the cold or return water was entering the flow side of the boiler rather than the correct return side of the boiler, when they serviced that boiler. These are clever bomb-enhancing terrorists who enter our homes on a regular annual basis - what brilliant saps we are in the UK!! Almost as good as Bosch selling its Self-Cleaning Tumble-Drier to us idiots in Britain - the machine stopped working once it had found and removed the fluff from the condenser to the bottom water collection not-accessable tank.

I must assume that it is unnecessary to remove the fan, pilot burner assembly or main burner, clean them and reassemble to complete the service. Boom, Boom!!!

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On my central heating and hot water system, I have a Grundfos water pump to pump the water round the system.

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Just for information the pipe coming out of the boiler on its top left is the FLOW pipe from Diagram 3.2. This indicates that you pump the water heated by the boiler from the Flow side rather than the return water.

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The FLOW pipe from the boiler comes in from the right to an isolating valve, Dark Red Grundfos pump, isolating valve, By-Pass with LOCKSHIELD VALVE, central heating to the bathroom radiator, before a T junction followed by a gate for heating the Horizontal Hot Water Cylinder (top right copper cylinder) on the left side and a gate for the Central Heating (Chromium plated steel above the pump).

If the pump is fitted with fibre-board gaskets instead of black rubber gaskets between them and the isolating valves, then when the pump needs cleaning; those fibre-board gaskets having hardened will leak once the pump is refitted and the nuts are retightened.

Note that the pump is suspended above the wood floor following Point 8 on Siting of Circulators on Page 5 of Grundfos literature- see below.

Note the nearly horizontal position of the pump - Page 11 of the Literature supplied with the pump has the following Maintenance - "Selectric/Super Selectric circulators do not require any maintenance during service life, since pump bearings are water lubricated."

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In November 2011, my boiler was serviced and the pump replaced because it was noisy. The new pump failed in March 2012.

In Fig.2 above there are 3 positions of the pump that have red crosses through them to indicate not to position them that way.

Mine had been fitted in the position with the first Red Cross.

As it states in point 2. The shaft must not fall below the horizontal plane, even by a few degrees, as this causes premature wear of the top bearing and shaft. Pumps should not be installed with the shaft in a vertical plane, as this may lead to dry running of the top bearing, noise and possible pump failure.

If when looking down at the pump on a horizontal pipe this GRUNDFOS Type UPS Label is looking up at you, then your pump has been fitted entirely wrongly. What should be facing you is the black plastic on the left side of the pump in the photo above.

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Annual checks of Fernox inhibitor should be carried out by the Heating Engineer and topped up accordingly. None of my Service Engineers have ever done this unless I requested it.

That is why even after 7 hours of power-flushing in January 2012; one of the radiators would not get hot. When it was removed outside and emptied it was full of black gunge. When the power-Flush started, the water was pumped one way round the house for 10 minutes and then round the other for another 10 minutes. This ensured that plenty of bits collected in the boiler. When the system was restarted, the boiler kettled and boiled. I was informed that that would go away after a few days. The next Heating Engineer discovered that the pipework from the house was wrongly connected to the boiler as shown above.

Apparently, it is recommended that your system is power-flushed before a new boiler replaces your old one!!

"Fernox Protector MB-1 gives long term protection of domestic central heating systems against internal corrosion and limescale formation. It prevents corrosion of all metals found in these systems, i.e. ferrous metals, copper and copper alloys and aluminium. It is suitable for all types of boiler, radiator and pipework systems. Fernox Protector MB-1 is compatible with all metals and materials commonly used in central heating systems.

For continued long-term protection we recommend Protector levels are checked regularly (annually). The concentration of the product can be easily measured on site using a Fernox Protector Test Kit." from Fernox.

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I had found that with 7 single radiators, 2 towel radiators and 10 double radiators that the radiators in the ground floor did not get very hot.

The Grundfos domestic Water Pump that was fitted in November 2011 by the same Heating Engineer as did the boiler service had a power of 5 metres head, so after my investigation through a local plumbing supplies shop who contacted Grundfos; I requested that the next size up with a 6 metre head was installed in March 2012. My system is probably twice the size of the normal household.

Now all my radiators get hot.

It is possible that the radiators have flow and return pipes on the upper floors of 28mm diameter with 15mm to and from each radiator, whereas the downstairs is 15mm diameter with 15mm diameter to and from each radiator. Water tends to flow in the easier path. It might be worthwhile to check that all flow and return pipework is the same diameter as it is being installed to make later balancing of the central heating system easier. 15mm diameter pipework is considerably cheaper than 28mm pipework to aid the profitability of the installer.

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I had a Room Thermostat fitted in the Hallway to control the overall room temperature. The Thermostatic valve was left on the radiator in the Hall. In order not to get one fighting the other, you could suggest to the Heating Engineer to replace that Thermostatic Valve with an ordinary adjustment valve.

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Each of my radiators has a Thermostatic valve which was fitted to it 25 years ago. At that time those valves had a one-way water flow. I have now discovered that some of them are the wrong way round for that water flow. The new ones are apparently Bi-Directional so it does not matter which way the water flows through them. So, currently my water circulator has to fight against some Thermostatic Valves as well.

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When the central heating system is first installed, it is unlikely that every radiator with its non-thermostatic valve fully open will get hot. The radiators are not connected in series, they are in parallel between the Flow and Return pipes. In order to get the system balanced, then the non-thermostatic valves have to be adjusted accordingly starting with a half-turn on. You can do this yourself, but perhaps the Heating Engineer may be the expert - you are paying for that expert to install you a proper working central heating system after all.

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The installer should give you the instruction manual from the boiler manufacturer and the pump installation instructions. It is suggested that you read it and check that each annual service fully complies with their boiler procedures including checking on inhibitor levels and that the pump is correctly installed together with being the right size. Since the engineers living in the UK and employed in the UK do not appear to carry out the correct installation or maintenance (even though all the installation and maintenance instructions are supplied in the packaging), you might get better service from the Chinese - so contact their embassy!!!!

Otherwise, happy boom, boom and regular replacements of pump and boiler! I am not sure that damage caused by an exploding boiler is covered in house insurance.

This does give you an inkling of the results of assuming that experts from Corgi Registered gas boiler installers/maintenance staff in the UK do their work in the best interests and safety for the homeowner, when the homeowner is responsible for the results of the actions by those experts. If the boiler is not correctly maintained; then the output of the burnt gas may trigger an unsafe reading and trigger a request from the maintenance man for your boiler to be replaced before it would have been neccessary if the correct maintenance had been carried out.

Since more than 10% of the population in Britain is unable to read, do check that the boiler people entering your property in the UK can both read and understand what they are reading in the language that it is written in.

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G-C

Totally unsafe electrical work from NAPIT registered installer (NAPIT is a leading Government approved and United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) accredited membership scheme operator in the building services and fabric sector), with complaint form from homeowner being sent to perpetrator for them to solve instead of being sorted by NAPIT.

Totally unsafe electrical work from NAPIT registered installer (NAPIT is a leading Government approved and United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS) accredited membership scheme operator in the building services and fabric sector), with complaint form from homeowner being sent to perpetrator for them to solve instead of being sorted by NAPIT.

We wrote the
Manderson emails to us about re-wire;
concerns about the electrical work on 21.03.21;
Questions concerning electrics on 21.03.21 and
re-wire narrative on 19.04.2021
which had no effect on the credit card company or NAPIT. So we commisioned the following report to see if that will make any difference.
Pages 10, 11, 12, 13 contain information concerning the condition of the electrical installation of the complete rewiring of my home by Mr Manderson of Manderson Electrical Services Ltd, with the report by a qualified electrician and this statement about the work carried out:-
"The result of my observations and testing, I am recommending that all the fixed wiring be recovered and a complete new fixed wiring installation is installed. Unfortunately the work previously carried out is of such a poor standard I cannot re-use any of it."
Mr Manderson is a Part P Registered Electrician with NAPIT; Registered Competent Person Electrical; Approved Electrician from NAPIT; City & Guilds Qualified; Part P Electrical Safety; and Honest & Transparent. His firm was employed to replace all the wiring, power sockets, light switches and lights and make sure that rodents could not attack them to chew through the cables or cause an
electrical problem.
It is sad to see that the modern British Workman is prepared to create such a dangerous situation, lie about their work and steal money from the client when obviously they have re-used some of the old wiring and some of the old fittings as well in doing a rewire, but charged for those as if they were new ones in their rewire.
And they know that Nipid requires the client to re-use the same people to put the situation right, so no problem for the electrical contractor from Napit. So, with the support of Napit why not carry on and upset the client.
If the client complains, they state that is work in progress, even though we have paid for it.
In the case of no insulation behind the new stud walls; sorry sir, we will put it there; so they arrive with the insulation, spend time in the room and then when no -one is looking remove the insulation from the property without putting it into the area specified, leaving the new wiring behind the stud wall with no protection from the rodents because their is no Codex round it and no insulation either, but we still get charged for it.
Pages 10 lists 18 electrical faults on the new wiring, re-use of the old wiring, and old wiring that was still either in use or had been cut at the old power socket, at the old light fitting, or old light switch (the plasterers filled an old power socket metal box and short-circuited the fuse - it will be fine in 30 minutes sir; 4 hours later it was still shorting, so presumably that would explain why they switched off one of the fuses in the old fuseboard - see photo on page 15 of the report. As clients; we do appreciate having the opportunity of electrocuting ourselves from their re-wire work) where

• fault 2 is a Code C1 'Danger Present' and immediate action is required from March 2021, (the electricians testing 2 of the double power sockets installed in the kitchen in 1987 found that they were polarity reversed. This risks a short circuit, shock or fire. They corrected the problem immediately),
• Faults 4, 12, 14 and 18 are Code C2 and Urgent remedial action required,
• Faults 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17 are Code C3 where improvement is recommended

Table Item Number

Q-A
How does the government's £58 billion black hole break down in August 2022?

Table Q - How does the government's £58 billion black hole break down in August 2022?

Copy of Analysis article on Page 9 of The Times on Saturday November 12 2022:-

"How does the government's £58 billion black hole break down?

• The smallest component is the £16 billion in tax cuts promised by Liz Truss in her mini-budget that Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt have kept.
• The next element, according to calculations by the Resolution Foundation, an economic think tank, is £23 billion in additional borrowing that will be needed because of weaker growth.
  Back in the spring the OBR predicted growth of 3.8 per cent this year, 1.8 per cent next year, and 2.1 per cent the year after.
  But that now looks to be highly optimistic. The Office for National Statistics reported that GDP was estimated to have fallen by 0.2 per cent in the 3 months to September following a rise of only 0.1 per cent in the second quarter of the year.
  This means lower revenues for the government and potentially higher liabilities in areas such as benefit payments. Without spending cuts and tax rises this shortfall will have to be paid for by additional borrowing.
• The final element is the cost of that borrowing, which has risen significantly. The yield (or interest rate) on a government 20-year bond is now about 3.7 per cent - well below the 5 per cent high after the mini-budget, but still higher than the 2 per cent rate when the OBR last assessed government finances.
• This is not the only problem. About 25 per cent of existing UK debt is inflation linked meaning it is costing us much more to service our existing debt than it was in the past - money which cannot be spent on other things."

My Comment:-

• This £58 billion is covered by sections 1, 2 and 3 above, but does not include the extra service cost from section 4.
• Minor detail that this Conservative goverment have increased the National Debt - UK's National Debt was £1,004 billion in December 2011. The Conservative UK Government have only been able to increase that to £2,710 billion by 4 August 2022.
  The cost of servicing this debt has risen from £43 billion and was projected to be £83 billion this year. This servicing figure has actually gone up significantly because of 1, 2, 3 and 4 above.
• From January to August this year, this Conservative government have overspent by £327 billion - they only overspend last year by a mear £310 billion.
• Assuming that this Conservative government does not spend another penny until April 2023, then the April 2023 budget only has to take £58 + £327 +£83 + a few extras, which is about
  £468,000,000,000 from the projected £1,054,000,000,000 November 2022 forecast of receipts for 2023-24 tax year, before deciding how to spend the remainder.
  
  
  Unfortunately the following fudge has been found found so that this government can keep on massively overspending.
   

Q-B
Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivers Autumn Statement to Parliament on Thursday 17 November 2022 laying out package of tax rises worth £24bn and spending cuts of £30bn to plug massive public funding black hole.

• Chancellor Jeremy Hunt delivers Autumn Statement to Parliament on Thursday 17 November 2022 laying out package of tax rises worth £24bn and spending cuts of £30bn to plug massive public funding black hole.
  
  'The chancellor gave an extra £3.3 billion to the NHS, £2.3 billion for schools, 10.1% increase in State Pension from April for retirees and £300 to retired households as cost of living grant and £2.8 billion for social care next year, and pushed most of £30 billion spending cuts beyond the next election (£21 billion of the total 'savings' and 'efficiencies' will be implemented between the 2025/26 and 2027/28 financial years), due by January 2025.' from Metro of Friday, November 18, 2022.
  
  The Office for Budget Responsibility predicts that house prices will fall by 9 per cent between now and the third quarter of 2024.
  My comment - House price crash and negative equity?
  '11% of homes have had their asking price cut by at least 5% since September 2022. Asking-price reductions are greatest in Southern England with almost 1 in 3 homes in the South East and the East of England reducing asking-prices to attract demand' - from I newspaper of Monday 28 November 2022.
  Payments are increasing for mortgages to buy your next home and for remortgaging your current home after your current one's time period has expired.
  
   

My Comment -

• £30 billion - £21 billion = £9 billion of spending cuts next year.
  So the chancellor has caused tax increase of £24 billion to next year plug a miniscule hole of £468,000,000,000 in this years budget,
  besides the £310,000,000,000 overspend in last year's budget, or the increase to the UK National Debt since this Conservative Government have been in power from £1,004,000,000,000 in December 2011 to
  £2,710,000,000,000 by 4 August 2022.
  
  £24+£9=£33 billion pounds does not cover the increase from the estimated March 2022 cost of £83 billion for the annual UK National Debt interest during the last 5 months.
  That leaves nothing to pay anything towards reducing the National Debt.
  This Autumn Statement states that it will help to pay towards cost of living for households, the energy cost, increase in NHS budget, increase in Pensioners State Pension, etc, which it can only do by adding to the National Debt and therefore increase the annual National Debt interest payment, since it has already overspent its received or forecast revenue this year.
  
   
• I did not realise that the government make use of the OBR forecast on Page 35 on Table 2: Receipts (excluding environmental levies): changes since March which was expecting £981 billion in March 2022 forecast from OBR but is now expecting £1.001 billion for tax year 2022-23 from the November 2022 forecast. An increase of £20.5 billion.
  The following is the Fiscal Outlook from Page 31 of the above OBR forecast "Receipts have recovered strongly from the worst of the pandemic, rising by £120 billion (15.1 per cent) in 2021-22, and are forecast to rise by a further £90.9 billion (9.9 per cent) this year. The tax burden (i.e. the ratio of National Accounts taxes to GDP) now peaks at 37.5 per cent of GDP in 2024-25, which would be its highest level since the end of the Second World War. From there, it falls gradually to 37.1 per cent of GDP by 2027-28, but remains 4.1 percentage points above its pre-pandemic level, and at its highest sustained level for seven decades."
  If the government is expecting an extra £90.9 billion this year, why does the UK population have tax rises of £24 billion on top of that? Is this where the Con is and why it is a CONservative Party leading it?
  
  I read in the Metro about a senior care worker who had to go to her manager and plead to reduce her hours, so that more of her benefits could be returned to her and then she could eat, as her daughter does. The benefit system traps people in it, because if they work and get paid then some of that comes off the benefit payment, so you almost get more on benefit if you do not work at all, but you cannot live on the benefit with the current cost of living and other increasing costs. You cannot get a full time job of work, because what you would be paid in take-home pay is less than you would get from the state benefit plus a little amount from paid work. So people on benefits are permanently trapped in that system.
  
  Another youngster earning over £125,000 a year has decided to move out of the country, since he does not wish to pay more tax. So workers who could improve the economy are being driven out?
  
   
• Why has the UK increased the National Debt by £1,379 billion pounds since 2011?
  How can the UK government overspend by more than £300 billion last year and this year?
  
  This Autumn Statement is a complete con trick and does nothing to balance the books except to increase UK National Debt.
   
• The windfall tax on renewables (wind and solar farms), biomass and nuclear power generators will be set at 45%, Chancellor Jeremy Hunt announced on Thursday. This will of course persuade the wind and solar farms to continue to invest and to generate electricity when 45% of the profit goes in tax in the UK, which they could have used to create more generators. This helps the UK to get to Net-Zero? But gas and coal electricity generators will be exempt.
   
• The above shows you what the main UK Government is capable of - each £100,000,000,000 added to the UK National Debt will now cost at least £4,000,000,000 of addition to the Annual return on the UK National Debt. The UK government is working on the same principle as on smoking (revenue £100 Billion, expenditure on treating it by the NHS £10 Billion = net tax profit of £90 Billion). Increase UK National Debt by £100 billion, return interest £4 billion - let us continue overspending.
  Minor problem if more than 25% of National Debt which is on inflation return interest became the current inflation or even higher. As the amount to be paid on the UK National Debt as interest goes up, then it will overtake the increase in the projected tax revenue. It does not appear that the UK government will ever pay off the UK National Debt, but hope that the never never does not catch up with them.
  
   

Q-C
This shows how local authorities can fulfill the UK Government requirement to build more houses and then mislead the buyer who buys the house. Then, the new house might get flooded - Oh dear!

This shows how local authorities can fulfill the UK Government requirement to build more houses and then mislead the buyer who buys the house. Then, the new house might get flooded - Oh dear!
Article from I Newspaper on Monday 28 November 2022:-
'As many as 25,550 new homes are set to be built in flash flood risk areas without proper drainage in place,
an insurer has warned.
Planning permission was submitted to build 35,282 homes in risk areas between June 2021 and June 2022, a report commissioned by LV= General Insurance suggests, with nearly three-quarters likely to be approved.
For developments of between 1 and 9 houses, there is no legal requirement for drainage strategies, even where builds are planned in flood risk areas.
Claims director Martin Milliner said:"While we know the building of homes is necessary... the country is becoming less resilient to more extreme weather." '

This shows you what Medway local government is capable of:-

If you approve of the building of this school in this area in this way, you might find the following worth looking at:-
Local Authority
A Medway newsletter
A free Medway newsletter every Friday covering local news, politics, culture, and more. Paid supporters receive three newsletters every week.
Hundreds of paid subscribers.
Perhaps you might read all of the Southeastern "simplifies" timetable by removing services article

Further problems for Houseowners and Builders when the new home is surrounded by clay and how to solve them is detailed in the next area below, in this wet background.
 

Table Item Number

R-A
In 2020, there were over 400,000 discharges of untreated sewage into English waters, and the UK ranks last in EU countries for bathing water quality. from REB Research Blog by Dr. Robert Buxbaum.
As new buildings are built then this extra sewage and rainwater from the roof exceeds capacity of pipe laid in 19th century and this extra sewage/rainwater then overflows into the river. The above diagram has not added the extra illegal water discharged from the millions of paved over front gardens, which are used as car park.

"Not a single new reservoir has been built since 1991 - privatisation of water industry in 1992 - despite the UK population increasing by 10,000,000, at a time when climate change has put pressure on existing reserves. 1 new reservoir - Havant Thicket - is due to be completed by the end of this decade. According to a 2020 study by Greenwich University, the £123 billion of capital spending by water companies on upgrading the network of pipes, reservoirs and treatment plants over the past 30 years has been financed by customer's bills, while borrowing was used to fund £57billion of shareholder dividends. Water UK says 216,000 miles of water pipes date to the 19th century and so it is taking time to upgrade them to stop leakages. Most water suppliers in England and Wales plan to cut leakage by at least 15% between 2020 and 2025, working towards halving it by 2050" from I newspaper of 13-14 August 2022. I wonder why after 30 years of repairing/replacing these water pipes that they still lose so much water?

Table R - In 2020, there were over 400,000 discharges of untreated sewage into English waters, and the UK ranks last in EU countries for bathing water quality.

Other items in the Home Section - further expanded in Mission Statement Page - which have nothing to do with gardening, but reading them might deter you from visiting Great Britain; or employing its workforce; or trusting its local or main government:-

• In 2020, there were over 400,000 discharges of untreated sewage into English waters, and the UK ranks last in EU countries for bathing water quality.
  
  from REB Research Blog by Dr. Robert Buxbaum.
  As new buildings are built then this extra sewage and rainwater from the roof exceeds capacity of pipe laid in 19th century and this extra sewage/rainwater then overflows into the river. The above diagram has not added the extra illegal water discharged from the millions of paved over front gardens, which are used as car park.
  
  "Not a single new reservoir has been built since 1991 - privatisation of water industry in 1992 - despite the UK population increasing by 10,000,000, at a time when climate change has put pressure on existing reserves. 1 new reservoir - Havant Thicket - is due to be completed by the end of this decade. According to a 2020 study by Greenwich University, the £123 billion of capital spending by water companies on upgrading the network of pipes, reservoirs and treatment plants over the past 30 years has been financed by customer's bills, while borrowing was used to fund £57billion of shareholder dividends. Water UK says 216,000 miles of water pipes date to the 19th century and so it is taking time to upgrade them to stop leakages. Most water suppliers in England and Wales plan to cut leakage by at least 15% between 2020 and 2025, working towards halving it by 2050" from I newspaper of 13-14 August 2022. I wonder why after 30 years of repairing/replacing these water pipes that they still lose so much water?
  
  Do you mind bathing in raw sewage within a river or off the beach, eating a wild or farmed fish from it, washing yourself in it or drinking the mostly cleaned sewage water? There may still be some dangerous chemicals in that sewage from humans or farming or industry, which have not been removed? You can get leptospirosis if soil or freshwater (such as water from a river, canal or lake) that contains infected pee gets in your mouth, eyes or a cut – usually during activities like kayaking, outdoor swimming or fishing.
  No English river is free from pollution - Parliament report - 13 January 2022. "Raw sewage, microplastics and slurry are coursing through all of England's rivers, putting health and nature at risk, a parliamentary report concludes. Agriculture and water companies are the biggest contributors to this "chemical cocktail", the Environmental Audit Committee warns. People across the country using rivers for activities ranging from sports and swimming to fishing risk falling ill from bacteria in sewage and slurry. Microplastics worn away from car tyres and brakes are being washed from busy roads into rivers - the committee said National Highways and the Environment Agency are not doing enough to prevent this pollution." This report is from the Environmental Audit Committee, but "what it can't do is force the government to act on its reports or push its recommendations through Parliament. The committee's main power is to draw attention to any failures or shortcomings. So the hope will be this report shames the government and its regulatory agencies into raising their game on river pollution. What it can't guarantee is that your local river will actually be cleaned up any time soon."
  "UK rivers the worst in Europe for chemical pollution from prescription drugs - Paracetamol, caffeine and hay fever treatments in sewage released by water companies have implications for animal and human health" from The Telegraph (14 February 2022).
  ""What we know now is that even the most modern efficient wastewater treatment plants aren't completely capable of degrading these compounds before they end up in rivers or lakes. The most polluted sites were largely in low- to middle-income countries, and in areas where there was sewage dumping, poor wastewater management and pharmaceutical manufacturing." from Pharmaceuticals in rivers threaten world health - study by the BBC. Water is taken from 11 pumping stations on the River Thames and River Lee.
  We the British have the Stiff Upper Lip and do nothing but drink this muck and allow government to kill us off, but it would not be sensible for anyone to visit this country with this state of affairs, otherwise you could return home in a wooden box. "The total waiting list currently sits at an alarming, record high 5.98 million and continues to grow." from Pressure Points in the NHS report by the BMA - updated on Tuesday 14 December 2021, so you might not survive the wait for treatment in the UK.
  "A nurse in a 220-mile challenge to swim the length of the River Severn is in hospital after "swallowing sewage" in June 2019."
  "Ms Pierrot - 1 of 13 from London - who travelled to Kent for a swim on a July Sunday - and 12 of them became ill. Ms Pierrot had put her head under Medway river and ended up in hospital. Just 14% of English rivers are of good ecolological standing, according to the Environment Agency, and all rivers fail standards for chemical pollution. Live water quality monitoring exists only at designated bathing water sites - and only 2 of these in the UK are on rivers but River Medway is not one of them" From I newspaper of 30-31 July 2022.
  
  The homes being built in my home town of Medway - beside Medway river - are being bought by people from London, who are still suffering their river sewage pollution.
  The overflow pollution Diagram on this Action on sewage in rivers from South East Rivers Trust above, shows how the excess waste sewage and rainwater automatically overflows the control device to go via the open drain to the Medway river or the sea.
  Medway Council, make use of this automatic process to keep on building under instruction from the UK Government.
  
  6 major water companies in the UK discharging raw sewage, micro-plastics and slurry into rivers and thence the sea for France, Belgium, Ireland, Netherlands and Denmark to be affected.
  Southern Water has been fined for 6,971 sewage discharges.
  London Tideway Tunnels hopes to reduce its Thames river sewage pollution.
  I went to Camber Sands beach on 15/08/2022. I was not aware that raw sewage would come onto the beach during the afternoon with the incoming tide - You can enjoy following diseases involving sewage in most UK rivers flowing into the sea. It upsets France.
  
  People moving in from elsewhere will not know that they should not visit their local river, have a boat trip on it, swim in it, catch fish from it or anything else with it otherwise they could end up in Medway Hospital which went into Special Measures in 2013 and came out of it 4 years later.
• UK National Debt by Tejvan Pettinger - "According to the OBR  in 2022-23, debt interest payments will be £83 billion." 83 billion is more than 10% of the UK Tax revenue annually. UK government raises £800 billion in revenue each year.
  United Kingdom National Debt:-
  "The United Kingdom national debt is the total quantity of money borrowed by the Government of the United Kingdom at any time through the issue of securities by the British Treasury and other government agencies.
  At the end of December 2021, UK General Government gross debt was £2,382.8 billion, or 102.8% of Gross domestic product.
  Distinct from both the national debt and the PSNCR is the interest that the government must pay to service the existing national debt. In 2012, the annual cost of servicing the public debt amounted to around £43bn, or roughly 3% of GDP.
  In 2012, the British population numbered around 64 million, and the debt therefore amounted to a little over £15,000 for each individual Briton, or around £33,000 per person in employment. Each household in Britain paid an average of around £2,000 per year in taxes to finance the interest." UK's National Debt was £1,004 billion in December 2011. UK Government have only been able to increase that to £2,710 billion by 4 August 2022 - an average of £160 billion annually. So it does not matter what the new prime minister in the UK might reduce or increase taxes, that the UK is becoming more bankrupt and the politicians in charge have no idea of any fiscal policy to the extent that tax revenue raised will be going on paying the interest on the debt rather than on paying the NHS to look after the patients who do not have Covid. Liz Truss's spending policies would cost £82.5 billion with this PM candidate suggesting that Britain can afford to borrow more - £82.5 + £160 = £242.5. National Debt in 1993 was £225.457 billion and in 1994 was £274.243 billion. Liz Truss was born on 26 July 1975, she intends to increase the National Debt, by the National Debt of 1993/94 when she was 19, in 2022-23. In 28 years the UK government has increased the National Debt by 889%.
  National Debt Interest = £83 billion. Interest is £24 billion per £800 billion. This Year=107, Year 2=134.2, Year 3=158.8, Year 4=187.6, Year 5=217.19, Year 6=247.70 National Debt Annual Interest payment.
  Each of 28.3 million households in UK will receive £400 to help with increased electricity/gas. This is £11.32 billion.
  Ms Truss suggests cut of 5% from VAT saving each household £1,300. That is £36.79 billion.
  Sunak will make up difference between old ellectricity/gas price and new one of £1578 for 20.33 million families. That is £32.0334 billion.
  UK government has no money to cut taxes or give people help with cost of living expenses, since it only adds to the debt by suggestions of £48.11 billion by Ms Truss or £43.3534 billion by Sunak annually, so UK pays another National Debt Interest in Year 6 of over £8.7 billion on this reckless spending alone or over 1% of Annual Inland Revenue.
  Electricity for 5 fridges and lights in Wecare Food Bank cost £68 in February, £198 in March, £498 for September and the estimate for next year is £30,000. It and most others will be bankrupt by Christmas leaving only Amazon to supply food.
  The UK would run out of bullets in the first 2 days of a war with Russia - the UK citizens cannot even do the same as the people in Ukraine have done in taking up arms and defending themselves.
• My Gas Service Engineer found Flow and Return pipes incorrectly positioned on gas boilers (with the return pipe being connected to the flow of the boiler instead of the return connection) and customers had refused to have positioning corrected in 2020.
  Do you mind being in a gas explosion?
• Over 1100 school children will be poisoned by nitrous dioxide from their parent's cars (Petrol/Diesel fuel duty is 52.95 pence per litre plus VAT at 20% is then charged on both the product price and the duty to takes 47% of petrol pump price in tax) 4 new school buses and 4 new bus routes ending at the proposed new school; which will transport them in Medway.
  The UK Government Department of Education has approved the building of this Leigh Academy school at bing map and
  https://what3words.com/these.unsigned.riots , but maybe the UK Government Department of Health might not approve? The new school opened in September 2021. Are their doctors to treat them or will the patient have to wait more than 12 hours after being delivered to A&E at hospital before they are seen? Further details in Medway Proposed New School page.
• We wrote the
  Manderson emails to us about re-wire;
  concerns about the electrical work on 21.03.21;
  Questions concerning electrics on 21.03.21 and
  re-wire narrative on 19.04.2021
  which had no effect on the credit card company or NAPIT. So we commisioned the following report to see if that will make any difference.
  Pages 10, 11, 12, 13 contain information concerning the condition of the electrical installation of the complete rewiring of my home by Mr Manderson of Manderson Electrical Services Ltd, with the report by a qualified electrician and this statement about the work carried out:-
  "The result of my observations and testing, I am recommending that all the fixed wiring be recovered and a complete new fixed wiring installation is installed. Unfortunately the work previously carried out is of such a poor standard I cannot re-use any of it."
  Would you like to pay thousands of pounds for a British Workman to create the conditions for you to be electrocuted and/or have your house burn down because of shorting wires causing by poor workmanship?
  NAPIT is a wonderful organization designed to make the UK public believe that the electrical work being done would be safe. If there is a problem, they get you to write answers on their NAPIT form and then get you to send it to the perpertrator so that he can fix it? More than 1100 metres of new cable were used in the rewire by a qualified electrician, who also removed all the previous wiring, including the 2 fuseboards installed by Manderson, which were each attached to a different 13 amp power socket from the original fuseboards; and the 5 original fuseboards. They were replaced with 1 fuseboard, where each fuse was labelled, unlike the 2 fuseboards installed by Manderson.
• Drinking Water deprivation in Medway, England
  "Terror - Extreme fear; person or thing causing this;
  Reign of terror - time in which community lives in dread of death or outrage" from Volume 2 M-Z of The Reader's Digest Great Encylopaedic Dictionary.
  Drinking water deprivation in Medway, England. No tap water for 30,000 out of 45,000 newly built houses by 2035. In compensation for the additional water requirement; too much water will be taken from the chalk aquifers and this will lead to no water left in the aquifer for any Medway resident. Too much water has also been abstracted from underground in India.
  Southern Water Authority is responsible for water undertakings in Medway from 1973.
  "Twenty-five years from now we will have lost a third of our water sources through climate change, seen a reduction in the amount of water we are allowed to take from rivers and underground sources, and our population will have grown by 15%. Without action, we predict a supply and demand deficit by 2030 equivalent to around 50% of our current supply. Our Plan proposes 43 performance commitments for the five-year period from 2020 to 2025, directly aligned to 10 key outcomes to create a resilient water future." from Southern Water.
  Is it very kind to get the UK population to buy a house with no water, and then for people who have already bought their houses to deprive them of their existing water supply?
  
  Other items are expanded in the next row in this table with this wet background.

If the idea of saving trees does not appeal, perhaps you could aid damsels in distress:-

• A friend of mine recently had a problem with the hanging loop on the side of the backless dress having the zip, that the zip got caught in the hanging loop while she was pulling it up. This caused some lengthy period of time before - being by herself - she was able to free herself.
• If the hanging loop attached to the dress either side of the zip at its top was instead a tube of material which went into an open-ended pocket on each side of the zip. Then, these 2 open-ended pockets on each side of the zip inside the dress would extend beyond the zip at the bottom of the zip. The loop of material could be threaded through on each side, before its ends were sewn together perhaps with a tassel end. The bottom of the loop would be on the outside of the dress, whereas the top of each pocket would be on the inside of the dress.
• This same idea could be used on the other side with each open-sided pocket being the same length as the zip-side and it would be attached to the inside of the dress at the same distance away from the dress seam as for the zipped side.
• When the dress is removed from its hanger, and the dress has been put on, then the woman can pull the bottom of each hanging loop or tassel before she does up the zip. This should stop the hanging loop from being caught up in the zip. The flat tassel would make it look as part of the fashion of the garment.
  
• Another friend has a problem with large handbags. She buys second-hand ones from charity shops and besides the normal items, she prefers to top up coffee with brandy and so has a brandy flask while having meals in restaurants. She has shopping bags in the handbag, but if there is too much then the remaining shopping goes in the handbag as well. This causes damage in normal handbags to the lining and seams.
• Leather Design and Craft at www.leatherdesignandcraft.co.uk attend craft fairs and make tough items for longevity. So my friend designed the handbag and here is the result where the leather used is the same strength as in the bags carried by bus conductors some years ago:-
• 
  My friend is fond of cats, so the cat was added at my request.
• 
  
   
• My friend designed it so there would still be enough room for purse, keys, glasses and further shopping, without damage to the handbag!!! Undamaged handbag still going strong - 24 June 2022.

Table Item Number

P-A
Babies being given arsenic in their food without their mothers knowing in the USA. The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill - which could be given royal assent in January 2023 (unless we change our shopping habits) states that GMO food can be be sold to you without you knowing it. Then, it is likely that the UK will sign a trade deal with the USA. The UK would be flooded by USA produced baby food from HappyBABY, Beech-Nut, Earth's Best Organic, Gerber, Plum Organics from Campbell Soup Company, Parent's Choice from Walmart and Sprout Organic Foods. "A recent test of baby foods in the USA found that 95% contained toxic metals, with 73% containing traces of arsenic". 'Recent studies have shown that even low concentrations of arsenic impair neurological function, particularly in children. This review will focus on the current epidemiological evidence of arsenic neurotoxicity in children and adults, with emphasis on cognitive dysfunction, including learning and memory deficits and mood disorders.' from The Effects of Arsenic Exposure on Neurological and Cognitive Dysfunction in Human and Rodent Studies. 'Cognitive dysfunction refers to deficits in attention, verbal and nonverbal learning, short-term and working memory, visual and auditory processing, problem solving, processing speed, and motor functioning.'

Table P - Genetic Genetic Technology(Precision Breeding) Bill

Genetic Technology(Precision Breeding) Bill

From https://bills.parliament.uk/bills/3167 at 18:24 on Tuesday 8 November 2022, this bill has completed the 1st reading, second reading, committee stage, report stage and third reading in the House of Commons. It has completed its first reading and is in progress on the second reading in the House of Lords. It has not completed or started the committee stage, report stage or third reading in the House of Lords. The Consideration of Amendments and Royal Assent in the Final Stages have also not started.

The following is a copy from the Autumn 2022 Issue 138 of the Star&Furrow - Journal of the Biodynamic Association:-

"Genetic Technology(Precision Breeding) Bill by Lawrence Woodward
Right now, the government is pushing a bill through parliament which poses an existential threat to biodynamic, organic, agroecological and any other farmers and consumers who do not wish to grow, sell or buy genetically engineered food, feed, products, inputs or processes.

The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill (Note 1) is set to complete its passage through the House of Commons araound mid-October. The government aims to have it passed and given Royal Assent by the end of January at the latest. Although, in theory it applies only to England, because of the UK's internal market, it will impact in Scotland, Wales and in some ways in Northern Ireland.
Anyone who has taken comfort in the belief that because Biodynamic and Organic Standards do not permit the use of GMOs or genetic engineering technologies, they will be immune and not affected by this Bill, should think again.
The goverment is refusing to label (Note 2) all products and processes created under the terms of this Bill; the Food Standards Agency has so far set its face against any form of labelling as well; and the traceability measures in the Bill are sketchy to barely there.

No more choice
This means that farmers and consumers will be denied readily accessible means of exercising any choice in using, buying or avoiding genetically engineered products and processes. Worse, as things stand, it will be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to run effective, economically sensible, discrete supply chain verification and certification such as organic and Demeter schemes.
The implications of this for the marketing of biodynamic produce both domestically and for export are profound. Non-certified artisanal and local-based products will also be affected, but because of the lack of external verification of those "grey markets" some "moonlighters" and "free-riders" might prosper.
The upshot, though, will be a near fatal blow to the aspiration that farmers can and are willing to provide "food you can trust" and that citizen consumers can support those farmers through a values-based supply chain.

Natural GMOs?
In this short piece there is not enough space to detail the flaws in the Bill. The headlines are that creates a new category of GMOs called "Precision Bred Organisms (PBOs)". These are claimed to be the same as what could be produced by "traditional breeding" or "natural transformation".
They are not - as a recent open letter (Note 3) from international scientists and policy makers attests to - and the narratives that promote these stories are so far from the truth they shame the politicians, research establishment scientists, policy makers, food safety agencies and media who peddle them. Or they would do if they had any shame.
The terms of the Bill are so ill defined and lacking in coherence that even supporters of regulatory reform of genetic technologies privately recognise the Bill is a masterpiece of bad governance. The government's own Regulatory Policy Committe (Note 4) has twice determined that it is "not fit for purpose".
One critical issue that has been overlooked is how wide ranging the scope of this Bill. It is, for example, not limited to agricultural plants and animals but can also apply to wild and free living ones.

Where is the outrage?
To date the alternative food and farming sector has been lacklustre in its response to this Bill, either buying into the "its just like nature" narrative, or believing it won't affect them, or just being short of resources or headspace.
Maybe this is now changing; a joint letter signed by the sector (Note 5) has been sent to the new Secretary of State. But far more is needed. The bill will pass through the House of Commons unamended, courtesy of the goverment's deregulatory zeal and fat majority. It can also be amended in the House of Lords and further amelioration might be won through the FSA and the Scottish and Welsh governments.
So far, the burden of opposition has been carried by small specialist groups like Beyond GM, GM Freeze and GMWatch. "They would say that wouldn't they" is a standard rsponse to entreaties from these quarters. The NFU and corporate interests have enthusiastically promoted the Bill. Arguments from organic/biodynamic businesses, farmers and supporters have been lacking. That has to change and urgently.
Beyond GM and others are at hand to facilitate and amplify both organisational and individual actions, so please get in touch.
Longer term, the biodynamic and organic movements need to do more - and quickly - to build discrete, separate systems which are not reliant on the mainstream conventional sector.
Star and Furrow has previously carried articles by Alysoun Bolger and Lawrence Woodward highlighting the need for this. The increasingly rapid onset of genetic technologies makes this an urgent imperative.

Lawrence Woodward is a director of Beyond GM (www.beyond-gm.org)

Note 1 https://bills.parliamnt.uk/bills/3167/publications

Note 2 https://beyond-gm.org/gene-editing-jusy0label-it/

Note 3 https://gmwatch.org/en/106-news/latest-news/20092

Note 4 https://www.gov.uk/goverment/publications/the-genetic-technolgies-precision-breeding-techniques-bill-rpc-opinion

Note 5 https://ofgorganic.org/news/letter-to-defra-the-genetic-technology-precision-breeding-bill-2022 "

I wonder if when this bill is passed whether we will then sign a trade deal with the USA and have chlorine-washed chickens imported without anything on the label to tell us that is what has happenned? The EU banned the washing of chicken in chlorine in 1997.
"Fears over chlorine-washed chicken and other US farming practices have been described by US ambassador to the UK Woody Johnson as "inflammatory and misleading".
Mr Johnson urged the UK to embrace US farming methods after Washington published its objectives for a UK-US trade deal. He said the process was used by EU farmers to treat vegetables, and that it was the best way to deal with salmonella and other bacteria.
So is it safe? The evidence suggests the chlorine wash itself is not harmful. But the concern is that treating meat with chlorine at the end allows poorer hygiene elsewhere in the production process."
5 foods a US trade deal could bring to the UK are:-

• Use of antibiotics on cows and pigs
• the majority of US processed foods contain genetically modified ingredients
• Much US milk would be deemed unfit for human consumption in Britain
• 72 chemicals banned in the EU are a residue on fruit and vegetables
• A recent test of baby foods in the US found that 95 % contained toxic metals, with 73% containing traces of arsenic.
•  
• These are not marginal concerns for the US – food is not an aspect of a future deal that Britain will be able to simply opt out of. It is central to US objectives that call for “greater regulatory compatibility to reduce burdens associated with unnecessary differences in regulations and standards” including “a mechanism to remove expeditiously unwarranted barriers that block the export of US food and agricultural products”. The US trade deal is a threat to our food standards and our farmers, and the US will not sign a deal that doesn’t have food standards in it.

This means that next year, this Bill will have destroyed the organic food systems, bio-dynamic food systems and local farmers shops in England making it uneconomic to farm so the government's plan to replace fields with houses can further advance.

• Babies being given arsenic in their food without their mothers knowing in the USA. The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill - which could be given royal assent in January 2023 (unless we change our shopping habits) states that GMO food can be be sold to you without you knowing it. Then, it is likely that the UK will sign a trade deal with the USA. The UK would be flooded by USA produced baby food from HappyBABY, Beech-Nut, Earth's Best Organic, Gerber, Plum Organics from Campbell Soup Company, Parent's Choice from Walmart and Sprout Organic Foods. "A recent test of baby foods in the USA found that 95% contained toxic metals, with 73% containing traces of arsenic". 'Recent studies have shown that even low concentrations of arsenic impair neurological function, particularly in children. This review will focus on the current epidemiological evidence of arsenic neurotoxicity in children and adults, with emphasis on cognitive dysfunction, including learning and memory deficits and mood disorders.' from The Effects of Arsenic Exposure on Neurological and Cognitive Dysfunction in Human and Rodent Studies. 'Cognitive dysfunction refers to deficits in attention, verbal and nonverbal learning, short-term and working memory, visual and auditory processing, problem solving, processing speed, and motor functioning.'
  My Comment - Babies given arsenic would probably not pay attention in class when they were older and end up not learning much.
  If warning Number 4 in Other Table 5 causes the EU not to trade with us - once the UK is no longer following all 3800 REULs, then it is likely that a trade deal with the USA might be signed. If Parliament have got this far in the process of getting the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill through in less than 3 months, then it could be law within another 3 months. Fears over chlorine-washed chicken and other US farming practices and 5 foods a US trade deal could bring to the UK are problems concerning this bill for the UK population in table 5 of Mission Statement page.

Do you know that I can choose where to do my shopping for the next 6 months

• Monday in Aldi, Tesco, Amazon, Budgens, Fulton's Foods, Iceland, Marks & Spencer, Ocado, or Proudfoot Supermarkets
• Tuesday in Sainsbury, BM Express, Booths, Farmfoods, Fulton's Foods, Heron Foods, Lidl, Proudfoot Supermarkets, or Waitrose & Partners
• Wednesday Asda, Amazon, Budgens, Co-op Food, Fulton's Foods, Morrisons, Ocado, Proudfoot Supermarkets, or Waitrose & Partners
• Thursday in Tesco, B&M Express, Booths, Co-op Food, Fulton's Foods, Heron Foods, Iceland, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, or Proudfoot Supermarkets
• Friday Aldi, Amazon, Budgens, Co-op Food, Farmfoods, Fulton's Foods, Morrisons, Ocado, Proudfoot Supermarkets, or Waitrose & Partners
• Saturday in Sainsbury, Aldi, Booths Co-op Food, Heron Foods, Iceland, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Proudfoot Supermarkets, or Waitrose & Partners
• Sunday Asda, Amazon, B&M Express, Booths, Farmfoods, Lidl, Morrisons, or Waitrose & Partners

P-B

Poll: Are you happy to drink recycled sewage water from the River Thames? Thames Water has proposed this as one way of ensuring it can provide an adequate water supply for Londoners in the future. But could you stomach it?

Is any of this a good idea? "We could get 30% of it [river water] being from sewage, and it may end up being closer to 50% at times," says Dr Andrew Singer, a microbiologist at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. "If there is no further treatment of the sewage before they inject it into the rivers, that could have implications for things that live in the river. The drinking water facility would have to be aware that they are starting off with so much more sewage – the pharmaceuticals in sewage are quite resistant to breaking down, so they would have to work that much harder to make sure the drinking water doesn't have these chemicals in it. It's a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it. Whether the rivers are any better off for it, you can look at it two ways – the river will have more water in it, which is a good thing, but the water is going to be from sewage effluent and that's more of an unknown." from The Guardian, Friday 10 May 2013. Thames Water are testing public opinion. "The fact we're having this conversation a good 15 years before this would even happen is a good thing because people would get used to it," says Evans. "It's all about public perception, that's the main hurdle here." So it is likely to happen within the next 7 years. According to "Sewage dumped in rivers for months on end" article by The Times on Monday November 8 2021, there is already untreated sewage being dumped by the Water Companies in the Thames and other rivers as well as in the sea round our coast, so will we catch more diseases from the chemicals which have not been removed in converting this river water into drinking water for our taps, as they are worried about in that article?

Instead of using 131 litres of water per person per day, Southern Water would prefer us to use only 100 litres per person per day. New Houses are fitted with a pressure reducing valve to reduce the consumption to 110 litres per person per day at a cost to the builder of about £9 for the valve.

In 2020, over 400,000 discharges of untreated sewage into English rivers/ sea.

I went to CAMBER SANDS beach last week with my wife, her 2 brothers and 2 children of 1 of the brothers. I did not enter the sea not did I play with the sand, but the remainder of my party did. The Lifeguard requested people not to swim due to a dead sheep in the sea in the afternoon when the tide was coming in and there was brown scum on the tide mark. The brown foam that came onto the beach was not from 1 sheep, but more likely from sewage coming in on the incoming tide and being incorrectly stated as being from a sheep. Kids played with the foam and people swam in this sewage polluted sea without realising.
We are very grateful to the MP for that area Sally Ann Hart who voted against proposals in Parliament to prevent Water Companies from discharging sewage so easily in October 2021.
The following comes from ryenews.org.uk that it was sewage discharged by Southern Water:-
"Recent analysis has shown the scale of Southern Water’s failure to stop raw sewage from being discarded into local rivers and ultimately into Rye Bay. The data is taken from 2019, which led to Southern Water being fined £126 million for ‘deliberately misreporting its performance’, and has been collected by the Rivers Trust under the campaign, Is My River Fit To Play In?
A search of their interactive map reveals shocking results. Six locations in Rye saw a discharge from the sewerage network into local rivers in 2019. The worst offender was Southern Waters’ outflow at St Margarets Terrace in the Rock Channel area. In 2019, this storm overflow spilled 102 times for a total of 585 hours into the River Tillingham.
The location of the next worst site was the storm overflow at Rye Cricket Salts which spilled 31 times for a total of 115 hours into the River Rother.

Other raw sewage spills were reported at:

• • Monkbretton Bridge – storm overflow spilled 21 times for a total of 25 hours into the River Rother;
• • Winchelsea Road – storm overflow spilled 18 times for a total of 144 hours into the River Tillingham;
• • Wish Street – storm overflow spilled 5 times for a total of 4 hours into the River Tillingham;
• • Fishmarket Road – storm overflow spilled once for a total of one hour into the River Rother.

The River Trust’s advice is to avoid entering the water immediately downstream of these discharges, especially after it has been raining. The rivers Tillingham and Rother enter Rye Bay, after only a short distance, between the beaches of Camber Sands and Winchelsea Beach.
‘Using rivers for swimming, paddling, fishing and playing is fantastically rewarding and good for our health, but like all outdoor sports, carries an element of risk.’ the Rivers Trust said.
‘There is no public health monitoring of river water quality in the UK, so this map will help river users weigh up the risk before taking to the water. It shows some of the sources of pathogens (bacteria or viruses) in rivers which can cause illnesses. We are calling on all river users to join us in tackling these issues.’"

AS A TOURIST WOULD YOU LIKE TO DRINK SEWAGE WATER, EAT A FISH THAT ATE RAW SEWAGE, OR FOR YOU TO SWIM IN ITS SEWAGE CONTAMINATED RIVERS, LAKES OR SEA? IF SO, COME TO GREAT BRITAIN AND LIVE IN THIS UNHYGIENIC COUNTRY, WHERE WE DO NOT HAVE THE CLEAN UNCONTAMINATED WATER FOR OUR DAILY NEEDS, NOR THE DOCTORS TO TREAT US OR THE CLEAN AIR TO BREATHE.

You might decide that dying from that activity caused by sewage that Members of Parliament have agreed should be released into those environments might make you rethink about coming to Great Britain. This article from Riverford Organic Farmers arrived on my doorstep today (2 November 2021):-

"Flushing away our water quality.

This week my attention was caught by a battle not in our usual fields (nor on land at all), but important none the less. As children in the '60s, we swam and fished in the River Dart, which runs past our farm, without worry. We took it for granted. But by the early '80s, few people would risk swimming; in quieter stretches, the riverbed became covered up in up to a foot (30 cms) of brown algal growth. Sitting with a notorious local poacher in the early hours while he plied his trade, the reason became obvious: the river changed colour and developed a horrendous stench as the local sewage plant opened its gates under cover of darkness. Soon the river was dead, and most of the fish gone. Then, in 1989, Thatcher privatised South West Water. Whether through better management, access to private capital, better regulation by the Environment Agency, or the threat of legal action from Europe, our river became cleaner. Water bills rose hugely, but it seemed to work; farmers built better storage for slurry, and sewage treatment became much more effective.

Today, you can again see families picnicking by the river and swimming on sunny days. I find that I once more started to take this amenity for granted. But behind the scenes, things are changing. After decades of raking in billions in profit for shareholders, water companies have failed to invest in vital infrastructure - and across the UK, our sewage system is now unfit for purpose. We are told the investment needed to meet water standards is too high. But the truth is that more has been extracted in dividends than invested in improvements; one recent report found that South West Water had an average 26% profit margin over 10 years. In 2020, there were over 400,000 discharges of untreated sewage into English waters, and the UK ranks last in EU countries for bathing water quality."

"Thames21 opened last Monday’s BBC Panorama’s documentary - 12 April 2021, The River Pollution Scandal,  by highlighting the impact of sewage discharges into the river Thames. London’s overloaded sewage system routinely discharges raw sewage into the Thames, on average once a week. The city’s combined sewer overflow (CSO) system was designed to be a safety valve for occasional use, to prevent sewage backing up into people’s homes when the sewage system is overloaded. But discharges have become regular and routine." from Thames21.org.uk.
"Sewage dumped in rivers for months on end" article by The Times on Monday November 8 2021 states:-

• Untreated sewage is being spilt into rivers for months on end from emergency outlets that are supposed to be used only in severe storm conditions, an analysis for The Times has shown.
• Conservative MPs voted down an amendment to the Environment Bill last month that would have placed a legal duty on water companies "to take all reasonable steps to ensure untreated sewage is not discharged from storm overflows".
• The new analysis indicates that Thames Water has 5 sewage treatment works that released untreated effluent - a mix of raw sewage and rainwater - into rivers for at least 3,000 hours last year, equivalent to more than 4 months of spilling.
• According to the Environment Agency, sewage was spilt into water courses more than 400,000 times last year - a 27% increase on the previous year. However, Hammond's analysis suggests that the Agency often has no idea about when Sewage Treatment Works are spilling untreated waste.
• The Environment Agency generally allows discharge from sewage works as long as the treatment works are treating sewage above a rate stipulated in its permit and it is during a period of rainfall or snow melt.
• Hammond found more than 700 breaches of these conditions at 13 Thames Water Sewage Treatment Works over 3 years. Less than 5 per cent of these are in the Environment Agency's records, suggesting that it is missing 95 per cent of Thames Water's illegal spills. He has also shown that a huge number of treatment works do not have equipment monitoring spills.
• Anglian Water has more than 1,100 Sewage Treatment Works but only 22 have a system to monitor the amount of sewage being treated. Of those, 21 do not have permits to release untreated effluent directly into rivers. The one works with a Sewage Treatment Meter and a permit to make storm discharge is at Canvey Island. However, a freedom of information request showed that the equipment that records sewage spills at this works failed 8 weeks after installation.

Poll: Are you happy to drink recycled sewage water from the River Thames? Thames Water has proposed this as one way of ensuring it can provide an adequate water supply for Londoners in the future. But could you stomach it?

Is any of this a good idea? "We could get 30% of it [river water] being from sewage, and it may end up being closer to 50% at times," says Dr Andrew Singer, a microbiologist at the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. "If there is no further treatment of the sewage before they inject it into the rivers, that could have implications for things that live in the river. The drinking water facility would have to be aware that they are starting off with so much more sewage – the pharmaceuticals in sewage are quite resistant to breaking down, so they would have to work that much harder to make sure the drinking water doesn't have these chemicals in it. It's a problem that can be solved by throwing money at it. Whether the rivers are any better off for it, you can look at it two ways – the river will have more water in it, which is a good thing, but the water is going to be from sewage effluent and that's more of an unknown." from The Guardian, Friday 10 May 2013. Thames Water are testing public opinion. "The fact we're having this conversation a good 15 years before this would even happen is a good thing because people would get used to it," says Evans. "It's all about public perception, that's the main hurdle here." So it is likely to happen within the next 7 years. According to "Sewage dumped in rivers for months on end" article by The Times on Monday November 8 2021, there is already untreated sewage being dumped by the Water Companies in the Thames and other rivers as well as in the sea round our coast, so will we catch more diseases from the chemicals which have not been removed in converting this river water into drinking water for our taps, as they are worried about in that article?

Unbelievably, MPs recently voted to DROP a new amendment to the Environment Bill that would force water companies to stop raw sewage entering our waters. Thanks to campaigners led by Surfers Against Sewage, at the time of writing a huge tide of public pressure has ALMOST OVERTURNED THIS VOTE, in what would be one of the greatest wins for the protection of water quality ever. This (I hope) victory shows the power of public pressure, if we speak up for our natural world. You can learn more and find the latest news at sas.org.uk/EndSewagePollution-SewageBill." Monday 1st November 2021. riverford.co.uk.

My 2 suggestions:-

• If the Environment Agency fined the Water Company a pound for the first offence and THEN DOUBLED THE FINE for each successive discharge with a week to pay the fine. These fines would start on 1 April 2022, to give time for the water companies to cure the problem. Non-payment within that time period, doubled the fine for each week not paid. This information about the discharge would be displayed on a Sewage Discharge website for the whole country to view and be able to see who the offenders were and when they paid. The payment would come from each of the workforce, including the directors and anyone else who was working for the firm at that time, and not from the firm. When the fine has passed the 100,000 pound mark, then the firm is taken over by the Environment Agency and then any discharges are stopped within 2 months. If after that , the infrastructure had not been sufficiently updated, then starting with the newest properties; they would not be able to use the sewage system to accept their waste, until the water company/Environment Agency had created the infrastructure for them to do so. The fines from the fined workforce would aid the cost of creating the updated infrastructure.
• At the same time, the Environment Agency would employ photographers to photograph every property where it abutted public land (6.6 million people have turned some or all of their front garden into parking). When it was raining, if the rainwater overflowed from the property onto the public land, then the same fine system would apply to each of the owners of that property. Each week that the rainwater could then continue to overflow onto public land, then the same doubling of the fine would occur. These fines would start on 1 April 2022, to give time for the property owners to cure the problem.
  • It is unfortunate that buildings like new homes are built on slopes of clay, and that there is no system set in place for this rainwater not to run off the property onto other property, so many new housing estates would become insolvent within a month. The builders must correct the problem for their new estates by plants and Dry Attenuation Basins - "Detention basins are surface storage basins or facilities that provide flow control through attenuation of stormwater runoff. They also facilitate some settling of particulate pollutants. Detention basins are normally dry and in certain situations the land may also function as a recreational facility. However, basins can also be mixed, including both a permanently wet area for wildlife or treatment of the runoff and an area that is usually dry to cater for flood attenuation." from The Community for sustainable drainage, as specified on Medway Proposed New School Page.
  • This would also apply to each of the owners of land where the rainwater from the land/drive/patio was directed into the storm drain for the downpipes from the roof. Rainwater Drainage article at the start of Drive Foundations in Clay page shows what legislation came into effect on 1st October 2008 about not allowing the homeowner to discharge this rainwater onto the public road from his new drive. I have seen - this week - an entire front garden converted into a drive and the rainwater is directed into the storm drain for the front and side roof of the house and now the new drive with its surface drains alongside the house to the storm drain for the roof. Allowing for the regulation depth of 2 inches (5cms) for a rainwater soakaway, then more than 6 cubic metres of rainwater would flow from the drive into the stormdrain.
  • Both sets of rainwater would add to the rainwater from the roof and overload the stormdrain, causing possible flooding of houses lower down the hill and overwhelming the storm-drain system.
  • The other problem with the drive/patio area is that the rainwater cannot then enter the ground, filter through it and be used by the water company in the future (like filter through the chalk in Medway and then be pumped up from chalk aquifers), since it would appear that the storm-drain water goes into the river or directly to the sea and is then lost.
    The planned additional housing growth for Medway and Kent between 2011 and 2031 is an average delivery of 8,900 homes per year = 20 x 8,900 = 178,000 homes for a 2031 population of 2,127,600 - an increase of 396,300 from 2011, equivalent to 23% growth. Instead of using 131 litres of water per person per day, Southern Water would prefer us to use only 100 litres per person per day. New Houses are fitted with a pressure reducing valve to reduce the consumption to 110 litres per person per day at a cost to the builder of about £9 for the valve. If people used only 100 litres per person per day, then this would be a 23.66% reduction in the use, which could then be used up by the increase of 23% in the population. Then if we reduce the water consumption again, then we can supply the same total volume of water and receive more money for it. But, there is a problem, as you build more roads, homes and infrasture, then you reduce the area of ground, which can accept the rain and be collected to be used as drinking water. Therefore we will end up with too many people chasing too little water. Assuming that half the increase in the population will occur between 2021 and 2031, then an extra 198,150 people will require a doctor. Assuming 2000 patients per doctor, that will require an extra 99 doctors plus all the support staff. This increase of GPs would also be required in the other counties of Great Britain, which at only 111 new GPs arriving each year could be a problem.
  • So what will happen to the volume of rain over the country due to climate change?
  • "Around 5.2 million properties in England are at risk from flooding. The Environment Agency has said that if current planning outcomes continue, this number could double in the next 50 years. The Government has recently consulted on proposals to change England’s planning policies to better respond to flood risks. The House of Commons environment committee and the Royal Institute of British Architects have raised concerns over the Government’s current planning framework. " from UK Parliament House of Lords Library. If these properties get flooded, then it means that the rain that falls on their garden/drive areas will discharge onto public land and so they will get fined and possibly lose their homes if the flood lasts a few weeks before draining away. It does not help when homes are built on what used to be a water-cress farm, that normally floods each year, but the new owners may not know that.
    "New Homes planned for Flood-risk areas" article in The Times on Monday November 22 2021:-
    More than 5,000 homes are due to be built in some of the most flood-prone parts of the country ... found that 4,255 new homes had received planning permission in areas considered highly likely to flood, which is defined as a location with a 1-in-30 chance of flooding in any given year. ... In the aftermath of flash floods that devastated parts of London in July, experts have warned that residents are being left at risk by worsening climate change and pressure on local authorities to build thousands of new homes. Researchers analysed more than 16,000 planning applications between January and September and found planning permissions had been granted in local authority areas where more than 10 per cent of homes were at significant risk of flooding." As each new house is built within a village, town or city, then flooding of the lower part of that village becomes more and more likely.
  • Drive Foundations from Case Studies would provide solutions to the above for the owners of the property. Homes that get flooded would need to build a dam round their property to keep the floodwater out and their own rainwater in. This could provide a problem when using cars or if the home-owners are disabled and use wheelchairs or vehicles for the disabled.

The following is from Combined Sewer Systems article by Thames21:-
"In a combined sewer system all of our wastewater and surface water goes into one pipe like the illustration above.  This pipe takes everything to a sewage treatment works for processing. When it rains our sewer system cannot cope with surface water in addition to our waste water and this results in a sewage overflow. The more rain that enters sewers the less room there is for sewage. A combined system is designed to overflow into a river instead of back-up into streets and homes.It is estimated that untreated sewage and sewage related debris is discharged into our rivers at least once a week.
In the last 3 years Thames Water has spent £715 million on upgrading 6 Sewage Treatment Works across London so that they can cope with population increases up to 2021. With this significant investment now is the time to start intercepting the rain that also ends up in sewer pipes. The more rain we can stop getting to the sewage works the longer the extra capacity will last. If we slow the rain down we will cut the risk of these sewage works overflowing and polluting our rivers.
But what will happen after 2021?
Thames21 believes that we should prevent as much rain getting into sewers as possible. It starts of as fresh water, turning it into dirty water makes no sense. In Portland, Oregon 35% of rain was prevented from reaching sewers using natural systems. We can use green drainage in London. If we can incorporate these natural systems (sustainable drainage systems (SuDS)) into our infrastructure we could extend the life of these upgrades. This would reduce the amount of rainwater entering the treatment works and prevent future possibility of sewage overflows.
As well as this, our city has undergone development; urban creep means that many of our permeable surfaces have vanished beneath the concrete and this prevents rainwater entering the ground water. Instead it runs off into our sewers taking with it the many toxins that settle on our roads, or it accumulates on the surface. In extreme cases this results in surface water (pluvial) flooding."

The overflow pollution Diagram on this Action on sewage in rivers from South East Rivers Trust, shows how the excess waste sewage and rainwater is automatically overflowing the control device and allowing the combined excess rainwater and sewage to go onto the open drain, which probably ends up in the river or the sea and nobody has to to worry about this automatic process. So keep on building and do not bother to increase the sewage hangling facility because all the extra can go into the river or sea.

Because the poulation is now converting their front gardens into drives, then either the water goes out of their property straight to the storm drain in the road or is led to their rainwater downpipe to go into the same storm drain. If that storm drain and the sewage drain becomes a combined sewer, then it will overflow its control device and cause the UK to become a cesspit. If Suds in School ideas were used instead for all drives and some of the rainwater from the roof, then we could reduce this automatic dumping of sewage into our rivers and round our coastline.
 

P-C

The government continues to instruct councils to get new houses built, so that between 2016 and 2021 water companies discharged sewage from these new houses into waterways and the sea for a total of 9,427,355 hours, the equivalent of 1,076 years. This sewage is received by France and other EU countries. London water is recycled up to 7 times from River Thames.

School children poisoned by nitrous dioxide from cars detailed in Medway Proposed New School and Mission Statement Pages.

Within PAGE/INDEX TABLE 3

'Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few' was stated by Churchill in 1940 about the UK's fighter pilots and bomber crews.
'Never in the field of Conservative Government was so much owed by so many to so few' as shown below. The Autumn Budget on the 17th of November 2022 is to plug the hole of £60 billion in the public finances by tax rises and public-spending cuts. Does the Chancellor and the Prime Minister belief that the British Public are complete Idiots - this sum does not even cover the cost of what this Prime Minister and the last one have caused in the last 2 months, nor does it cover the cost of this current overspend by this government, nor does it reduce this overspending from over £350,000,000,000 to zero for future years so that the National Debt can then be reduced:-

• The Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill - which could be given royal assent in January (unless we change our shopping habits) states that GMO food can be be sold to you without you knowing it. Then, it is likely that the UK will sign a trade deal with the USA. The UK would be flooded by USA produced baby food from HappyBABY, Beech-Nut, Earth's Best Organic, Gerber, Plum Organics from Campbell Soup Company, Parent's Choice from Walmart and Sprout Organic Foods. "A recent test of baby foods in the USA found that 95% contained toxic metals, with 73% containing traces of arsenic" detailed in yellow section in Mission Statement Page.
  What would our supermarkets do - who would have to sell us these products because of this Genetic Technology (Precision Breeding) Bill and the USA Trade Deal next year - if they were upset by us UK citizens choosing where to do our shopping for each day of the week for the next 6 months, only within this group of supermarkets for that day - starting on 12 November 2022?
  • Monday in Aldi, Amazon, Budgens, Fulton's Foods, Iceland, Marks & Spencer, Ocado, Tesco or Proudfoot Supermarkets
  • Tuesday in Sainsbury, BM Express, Booths, Farmfoods, Fulton's Foods, Heron Foods, Lidl, Proudfoot Supermarkets, or Waitrose & Partners
  • Wednesday in Asda, Amazon, Budgens, Co-op Food, Fulton's Foods, Morrisons, Ocado, Proudfoot Supermarkets, or Waitrose & Partners
  • Thursday in B&M Express, Booths, Co-op Food, Fulton's Foods, Heron Foods, Iceland, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Tesco or Proudfoot Supermarkets
  • Friday in Aldi, Amazon, Budgens, Co-op Food, Farmfoods, Fulton's Foods, Morrisons, Ocado, Proudfoot Supermarkets, or Waitrose & Partners
  • Saturday in Sainsbury, Aldi, Booths Co-op Food, Heron Foods, Iceland, Lidl, Marks & Spencer, Proudfoot Supermarkets, or Waitrose & Partners
  • Sunday in Asda, Amazon, B&M Express, Booths, Farmfoods, Lidl, Morrisons, or Waitrose & Partners
• School children poisoned by nitrous dioxide from cars detailed in Medway Proposed New School and Mission Statement Pages.
• The government continues to instruct councils to get new houses built, so that between 2016 and 2021 water companies discharged sewage from these new houses into waterways and the sea for a total of 9,427,355 hours, the equivalent of 1,076 years. This sewage is received by France and other EU countries. London water is recycled up to 7 times from River Thames.
• Homeless because water in Southern Water for homes will run out before 2030, since no new reservoirs have been built during the increase in UK population of 10,000,000. With the chemical pollution in every river, is our drinking water safe? Net Storage level in Wimbleball Reservoir in South West Water is currently only 20% (17 October 2022) whereas a year ago it was about 68%. The total Storage of the 5 largest reservoirs in South West Water is currently 30% whereas last year that was 70%.
• Increases in the cost of mortgages, due to the mini-budget, could cause a housing price collapse.
• who increase their National Debt from £225,457,000,000 in 1993 to £2,735,000,000,000 by 30 September 2022?
  The UK government overspent for 28 years to the annual average of £88,734,000,000. £83,000,000,000 is now the annual interest on that Debt. The UK does not even have the bullets or the shells to last more than 2 weeks, if this country is attacked.
• Gas explosion from incorrectly installed home boiler, and simpletons had refused to have positioning corrected in 2020.
• Totally unsafe electrical work from a NAPIT registered installer.
  Further details of above points in Wet Background in the next table on the right and in Mission Statement Page.
• If the Prime Minister wants to cut spending in order to stabilize the UK public finance as of 4 October 2022, then savings of over £350,000,000,000 has to be made that the Conservative Government had already overspent by August 2022 in this year. He cannot balance the books. Pity that due to the UK Goverment actions that the Bank of England on 29 September 2022 had to buy bonds over the next 13 working days to ease pressure on pension funds (to prevent them from going bust, then pensioners would lose their private pension part of the pension) and insurance companies. Unfortunately the interest rate on 30-year inflation-linked gilts has tripled since late June.
  UK Markets have lost $500,000,000,000 since Liz Truss Took Over . Average DRIP price of each share was £1.905 on 26 May 2022, opening price on 11 October 2022 is £1.344, so I have lost 29.47% of the value of my shares. The value of stock in pension fund and insurance companies has reduced because of this mini-budget - Member of public admitted on BBC Radio 2 on 12 Oct 2022, that when he checked his pension pot of £100,000 with his pension company, that it's value had dropped to £60,000.
  "How the gilt market works and its impact on pensions" by Andrew Ellson on Thursday October 13 2022 in The Times. This indicates that unless the Bank of England keeps on spending Thousands of Millions of English Pounds, then what it has spent at this time has not worked and the interest rate on these gilts has shot up again, so that pension companies could still go bust in using this pension scheme hedge, leaving existing pensioners with only the State Pension and the private pension pot of the working population going up in smoke.

P-D
School children are being poisoned by nitrous dioxide from their parent's cars, where the UK Government Department of Education has approved the building of their school

School children are being poisoned by nitrous dioxide from their parent's cars, where the UK Government Department of Education has approved the building of their school

Over 1100 school children will be poisoned by nitrous dioxide from their parent's cars, 4 new school buses and 4 new bus routes ending at the proposed new school; which will transport them in Medway. Running vehicle engines whilst stuck in a 300 yard radius queue from that traffic lights still produces air pollution. See Medway Proposed New School Page for how government is going to kill its population using the same method as used in German Concentration Camps against the Jews, together with Medway and its adjacent councils are going to build an extra 5000 houses requiring another 2,773,500 litres of water PER DAY, which require a new doctor for every 2100 people (2 adults + 2.2 children per house = 20,000 patients = 10 doctors. "In February 2020, to combat the stasis in GP workforce numbers, the Government announced a drive to recruit an additional 6,000 GPs by 2024. That’s 1200-1500 extra doctors in general practice per financial year by the end of 2024. But the British Medical Association says the number of fully qualified full-time equivalent GPs has only increased by 111 in the last year.). Unfortunately with the increase in number of patients for each GP, currently 2100, each year is causing the GP's to leave, putting further stress on the remainder, who are also likely to leave, so that the whole system collapses. Having a Tory Government, then means that we will have to turn to private medicine and many of the population will not be able to pay for it, so the population will crash).

We do and will not have the doctors to treat the patients who get ill from the traffic pollution nor the water for them to drink (27 March 2021).

My email to Leigh Academy who are going to build a school in the field opposite my house was sent on 28 July 2019 - no reply within 10 days. A 200 house development was to be built, but its proposal was defeated; and now Medway Council chose Leigh Academy to build it in 2018 (without telling the residents) and the rubber-stamping exercise with the local residents is occuring in September by them attending a meeting with Leigh Academy, before the school will be built and operate in September 2020:-
Dear Sir/Madam,

From where you intend to build a school for over 1100 girls/boys between 11-18, you will need to pump the main waste and the storm waste up to the drains in Otterham Quay Lane. This is what would have had to happen to the 200 house scheme for this field. I would suggest that you have a secondary pump system with its own generator for the event where the primary pump fails. The effluent overflowing into the railway cutting alongside for the main rail line from London to Dover would not be popular.
"Southern operates in the south-east of England, serving customers in Kent, Sussex, Hampshire and the Isle of Wight. It has over 300 wastewater treatment sites and Ofwat said a "significant number" of these had had been affected by problems." from Southern Water punished over 'shocking' wastewater spills article by the BBC. It has polluted rivers in southern England over seven years from The Times. "An investigation by The Times this month revealed that pollutants in England's rivers are at their highest levels since modern testing began 20 years ago, with no river certified as safe for swimmers." from The Times newspaper published on 23 August 2019.

From the photo on your website leighacademyrainhamplans.co.uk indicating the land for the school, it would appear that you will have the school building near Otterham Quay Lane with its car park whose access would be close to the railway bridge of Otterham Quay Lane. I am almost 71. During the rush hour when children are being taken to school, I can walk from my house, (see map on table alongside) into Rainham and beat the traffic to Mierscourt Road between 7:45 and 9:00. The road outside is getting more gridlocked. If you add 500 cars delivering 2 kids to school and trying to get out twice a day, then it will increase air pollution to harm these growing children (the school would be built below the ground level of Otterham Quay Lane). Sunburst Magazine of August 2019 for St Margaret's Church in Rainham stated - "The current World Health Organisation guideline value for Nitrogen Dioxide (NO2) is 40 (annual mean) and was set to protect the public from the health effects of gaseous NO2. In 2018 in Rainham it peaked at 47.8 and had an annual average of 41.8, which is likely to be a cause of asthma in children. Medway Council state that" There is a potential public health risk to residents who live close to, and travel regularly through, these areas.... there is a risk that, with the expected growth in population of 28,300 over the next 10 years and subsequent ongoing housing developments, an increased number of cars could contribute to the rise in air pollution across other areas in Medway." "In order to sort that out you need to switch the school car park, school building and playing grounds at 180 degrees and have the road access from Seymour Road to be alongside the railway cutting. That cannot now be done, since a new dwelling has now been built during January 2020 on that land by the Seymour Road. Seymour Road needs to be widened to become 2 lane with pavement instead of a traffic lane. Where it joins Canterbury Lane, then that Canterbury Lane needs to be widened to become a complete 2 lane road with pavement to Otterham Quay Lane. That would stop further congestion on Otterham Quay Lane and split the traffic into 2 extra roads joining the A2 - Seymour Road and Oak Lane.

There are 3 roads going East-West in the Medway Area. The M2, the A2 and Lower Rainham Road. If there is a problem on the M2 then Medway becomes gridlocked because the A2 is a series of traffic lights and if you wish to get to Rochester from Moor Street it is faster to go up to the M2 along it and down the other side of Rochester airport than to use the 4th side of the A2. If you want to use the Lower Rainham Road, then there is a long section of 20 mph, chicanes and speed ramps to destroy your suspension, so that also becomes a series of queues. Build a new dual carriageway north of the Lower Rainham Road between the 7 Sisters Roundabout and a new roundabout past Pump Lane. A new dual carriageway would provide better traffic flow and reduce the production of gaseous NO2 from stationary cars in traffic queues, since there are all those new houses built which currently use Otterham Quay Lane, 1250 new homes are to be built on the orchard off Pump Lane and building this new school.

If the school is to be community based, will there be a new Health Centre built on the grounds next to the school plot of land, together with a small shop/supermarket and cafe for kids lunches/parents waiting to pick up kids. The Health Centre opposite St Margarets Church in the middle of Rainham had 4 surgeries. One closed in January and it was difficult for the others to absorb their patients. My next door neighbours when they moved in 2 years ago tried to join one of those surgeries from another one where they lived before in Medway, they were unable to and are now selling their house. My wife and I are with one of those surgeries, but a) we are outside their area for accepting patients, b) they have no vacancies and c) some of their doctors retired in March this year, and they have not yet been able to replace all of them. So if you build the facility, will you able to staff it or will the children have no doctor?

There is a section on my Welcome page of www.ivydenegardens.co.uk which does explain why we in the South East are not just running out of water
1) because of climate change dropping less rain in the South East as the years roll on, and
2) not just because during 2 months of 2017 Southern Water over abstracted water from the aquifers under the town of Medway lowering the water table yet again,
3) and not just because the 129 litres of water normally used by each resident within the Southern Water area is now being reduced to 110 litres of water engineered into new built house/school by building regulations approved by local councils without people realising it,
4) But Southern Water is only building one new reservoir in Havant and being told by the government to regulate the supply using management techniques - increase price of water to persuade people to use less. If we dropped average consumption to 100 litres a day, then 20 million extra people could get water and the water companies would get more money for the same amount of product, since their record of reducing loss of water in their pipe system is not working very well.

I could suggest a) a 10 feet wide minarette with espalier (stepover fruit trees for the wildlife) fruit-tree and wildflower meadow buffer which includes a path within it round the site, that could be used to give the students, staff and community their '20-minutes-a-day" minimum 'dose' of time to spend in nature to help improve their mental wellbeing, the outside boundary would be acoustic barriers to reduce train and traffic noise. b) replacing car park surface with a reinforced grass system etc, and c) use the new playing fields for sports use by the community outside school hours and by a bootfair once a month for the community, with the school providing its staffing.

What is the other half of the field going to be used for? Why not annex it to the school and use it:
a) to grow the fruit and vegetables for the school to keep Moor Street Conservation Area a Rural Area
b) use part for allotments for community access with 1 being used by the school for educating the pupils
c) use part for a school community centre to discover the community's own social needs and then to meet them.
Yours sincerely,
Chris Garnons-Williams
1 Eastmoor Farm Cottages, Moor Street, Rainham, Kent

P.S. Further comments in Medway Proposed New School Comments in September 2019, including email to Medway Hospital who are holding an Asthma Workshop on 26 September 2019 between 10:00 - 12:00.
The consultation with the population has taken place and the website https://leighacademyrainhamplans.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Rainham-Roller-Banners-850x2000mm@50-x8.pdf now contains more information. "The closing date to share your views ahead of submission of the plans is Monday 16th September 2019". Today is the 19 September 2019.
Besides my earlier views detailed above, here are a few more:-

• 1. The site layout is an updated version of the one shown before the 9th September 2019 with the school etc in the same position as before. It now has a proposed roundabout with drive linking it to the school car park. It is a shame that Medway Council totally ignored its own road research where cables are laid across the road and the type of vehicle with its speed is recorded over several days. This would have shown that during the morning when schools are having their pupils delivered between 08:00 and 09:00 that Otterham Quay Lane is gridlocked as is the A2 that it leads onto. Assuming that the proposed 4 school buses could actually get round it, one would have to assume that 40 ton lorries could as well. This will cause traffic hold-ups at the roundabout with their running and polluting engines to enhance asthma in the children. Also there is little distance between this roundabout and the traffic lights at the end of Otterham Quay Lane - 100 yards, so this roundabout is also going to get gridlocked especially when you consider the extra traffic that is going to be getting on these roads from the proposed extra houses in a later point.
• 2. This school is still going to be lower than the public sewer drain in Otterham Quay Lane; so where is the pump to pump the sewage to a public main drain and another to pump the rainwater to a public storm drain?
• 3. The CGI of proposed sports hall and car parking shows tarmaced drive and concrete slabbed car parking. Why not replace car park surface with a reinforced grass system?
• 4. "The school catchment area is expected to be small, with the majority of students (84%) traveling less than 4km to the school". All the pupils will have to travel up or down Otterham Quay Lane to get to and from school. Many will also travel along the Lower Rainham Road, which has no pavement from Station Road to Otterham Quay Lane - that section is also narrow and so cyclists may well be knocked off their bicycles.
  The legend below the diagram showing school catchment area states committed developments of 300, 90 and 121 within the school catchment area and planning application submitted for 202 and 90 residential units.
• 5. On the Transport plan of Proposed buses, there will be 4 new buses going along the A2 via Mierscourt Road junction with the A2 to Otterham Quay Lane and turning round the roundabout to get back onto their return routes. These will also further clog the 2 roads of the A2 and Otterham Quay Lane to the extent that during rush hour, it will be quicker to walk than take the bus and the extra pollution is going to be horrific. Combine these buses with the parent's cars and even if there was no other traffic at all, getting to and from school where it is currently proposed would be an absolute nightmare.
• 6. Looking at the Internal Layout Level 00 I could not see a lift, that could be used to lift disabled children to each floor or to take heavy equipment up or down floors.
• 7. In the Internal Layout, the number of WCs for female students is the same as for male. Female students need to sit for both functions, whereas the male does not for 1 of them, so if there is the same number of female to male students, then female students need twice the number of WCs that males require. This is especially true if only 3 male and 3 female WC's are available from the Sports Hall if that is where community socialising is to take place, while locking off the rest of the school for security reasons.
• 8. From the Transport maps, it does not appear as if any change will be made to the road infrastructure besides the roundabout outside the school. This is going to be an environmental disaster with so many extra houses and this school. Is Medway concerned that currently being over the safety limit for Air Pollution, that this entire design of new residential units and this school is only going to make it worse?

P-E
Lack of drinking water from Southern Water by 2030.

Lack of drinking water from Southern Water by 2030.

Drinking Water deprivation in Medway, England
"Terror - Extreme fear; person or thing causing this;
Reign of terror - time in which community lives in dread of death or outrage" from Volume 2 M-Z of The Reader's Digest Great Encylopaedic Dictionary.
Drinking water deprivation in Medway, England. No tap water for 30,000 out of 45,000 newly built houses by 2035. In compensation for the additional water requirement; too much water will be taken from the chalk aquifers and this will lead to no water left in the aquifer for any Medway resident. Too much water has also been abstracted from underground in India.

Southern Water Authority is responsible for water undertakings in Medway from 1973.
"Twenty-five years from now we will have lost a third of our water sources through climate change, seen a reduction in the amount of water we are allowed to take from rivers and underground sources, and our population will have grown by 15%. Without action, we predict a supply and demand deficit by 2030 equivalent to around 50% of our current supply. Our Plan proposes 43 performance commitments for the five-year period from 2020 to 2025, directly aligned to 10 key outcomes to create a resilient water future." from Southern Water.

Medway has a population of 274,015 in 2014.
More than 10,200 homes will be built within the next 20 years. Assuming 2 adults and 2.2 chidren per home, then there will be an increase of 42840 people which is an extra 15.63%. This assumes that the remaining 274,015 people do not have more children or get married/partnered and bring further people into Medway.

Southern Water are allowing for 15% population growth and therefore any extra growth in Medway area over that will not have water. Southern water did overabstract water from aquifers for Medway towns in a few months during 2017. Medway gets all its water from aquifers. If you continue to overabstract then you run out of water. There is less water going into the chalk from the rain since more and more households in Medway pave over their front gardens and use them as car parks, so there is going to be less rain in the chalk aquifers as more of the open land is built on to hold these houses. The rain from the house drives gets into the storm drain. Most storm drains have a single large exit at their point of discharge (often covered by a grating) into a canal, river, lake, reservoir, sea or ocean.

Souther Water is building a Havant Reservoir in Hampshire which is many miles from Medway, so will they then pipe that water at least 100 miles to Medway?

Medway is not the only area in Kent, Surrey, Sussex or Hampshire where the UK goverment is requesting that many more houses be built.

"Peak Water": how to invest in a world that's drying up by MoneyWeek, shows that the world is running out of water. A solution to this is required by 2019 before more than another billon people lack access to water, with residents of Medway joining them.
According to information concerning water in a local paper given out in buses running in Medway on 22 March 2019, there will be an increase of 100,000 in the population per year within the area of Southern England serviced by Southern Water. Since Southern Water are only building 1 reservoir in Havant, some people within Southern England are not going to have water within only a very few years - this will affect students since thay inflate the population during term and disappear in the holidays. In Medway we are now short of doctors, dentists, schools, surgeries and infrastucture like roads to service these new estates.

Medway regeneration includes the following objective:
"The development of around 30,000 new homes at major new developments such as Rochester Riverside and Chatham Waterfront by 2035" - this includes the 10,200 detailed above. So if we subtract that 10,200, we are left with 19,800 homes plus the students who move into the area each term time for the 3 universities resident within Medway, who will have no water to drink or wash in, cook with, etc.
No need to worry that those new homes will also prevent rainwater from entering the ground within most of their ground area, thus reducing the volume of rainwater that reach the aquifers even further.

The Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs produced the following Water Conservation Report. Action taken and planned by government to encourage the conservation of water. December 2018:-
"We know that by the 2050s summer temperatures are likely to increase while summer rainfall decreases, leading to increased risks of short-duration droughts. The population in England is forecast to grow by over 10 million people over the same period, with a large part of this growth occurring in areas where water is already scarce."
"To maintain the current level of resilience, at least 3,300 million litre per day of additional capacity in the water supply system is required by 2050. The report suggested that this should come from one third supply-side measures and two thirds demand management measures. On demand management measures, the report recommends halving leakage by 2050, and enabling companies to implement metering beyond water stressed areas by the 2030s. In some parts of the country the volume of water taken from the environment is damaging our ecosystems. The Water Industry National Environment Programme estimates that water company abstraction volumes need to be cut by over 700 million litres per day (Ml/d) to address environmental problems. Reducing the amount of water customers use helps to reduce the amount of water that water companies need to abstract from rivers, lakes and groundwater, thereby helping to mitigate damage to ecosystems." Southern Water did overabstract water from aquifers for Medway towns in a few months during 2017. Medway gets all its water from aquifers (as detailed above).
"Reducing the amount of water we consume and waste could make a significant difference to water availability for people and the environment. For example if we were to reduce leakage by 50% and reduce per capita consumption to 100 litres per person per day we could provide enough water for more than an additional 20 million people by 2050, without taking more from the environment. In many cases efficiency can be achieved at little cost to developers. Requiring all developers to build to the lower standard of 110 litres per person per day would only cost a maximum of £9 additional per dwelling.
Southern Water water leakage in average litres per property per day was 75, 77, 80 and 80 between 2014 and 2018.
Around 22% of water currently put into supply is lost through leakage; this equates to approximately 3 billion litres of water per day. While leakage had fallen by a third since privatisation, since 2014 water companies have made little progrees in reducing leakage.
Southern Water per capita consumption in average litres per person per day in recent years is 141, 135, 130, 131, 129. Per capita consumption is a key measure for how efficiently we are using water. In 2017/18 England each person used 141 litres of water per day on average.
Although per capita consumption has fallen since 1999, however in recent years progress has flatlined. On average metered customers use around 33 litres less water than unmetered customers. Currently just over half of households in England pay for the water they use by metered charging.

On leakage, the government has fully supported Ofwat's challenge to water companies to reduce leakage by at least 15% by 2025. Water cmpanies are proposing an average leakage reduction of 16% by 2025. The water industry has also committed to reducing leakage by 50% by 2050 at the latest. This would reduce overall leakage to 10% of supply. Southern Water leaked 88 Million Litres per day in 2017-18 and aims to reduce leakage by 15% by 2025. Southern Water has committed to a target of 100 litres per person per day by 2040. Companies in an area designated as an area of serious water stress must consider universal metering, whereby they are able to charge all customers by metered volume, as part of their planning process" (so presumably if a property uses more 100 litres per person per day by 2040, then the extra water will cost more; to persuade them to use less).
"2015 - Update to the building standards: The goverment set an additional higher standard for domestic water usage in building regulations, in addition to the existing minimum standard of 125 litres per person per day. The higher standard set at 110 litres per person per day. Where there is a clear local need, local planning authorities can set out local plan policies requiring new dwellings to meet the tighter building regulations optional requirement of 110 litres per person per day. In 2017 the Environment Agency estimated that about 80/324 (25%) of local authorities have adopted the tighter standard for water use. The majority of these are in the south east. This means that people that live in newly built homes should typically use about 30 litres less water per day than those in existing housing stock" (Southern Water did overabstract water from aquifers for Medway towns in a few months during 2017. Medway gets all its water from aquifers (as detailed above). That being the case, where is the water for the people in the new houses that are being built in the Medway area? perhaps charges to the existing customers will reduce their usage so that what they no longer use can be used by the new people?).

"The building regulations for water efficiency are instrinsically linked to reducing per capita consumption." This means that you allow less water per person, you can then supply more people with water, so you can build more houses and keep up the cycle by further reducing the amount of water each person in the drought ridden area can use per day.
"Currently around 25% of all leakage is from customers' supply pipes. Supply pipes are the pipes that carry water from company pipework into a property. Supply pipes run from the boundary of the property (where there may be a company stop-tap) up until the first water fitting or stop-tap inside the property. The maintenance and upkeep of these pipes, including leak detection, is currently the responsibility of homeowners. Customer supply pipe leakage is included in the overall leakage calculation." How do customers find out if there is a leak in their supply pipe?

"2018- National policy statement for water resources infrastructure. The national policy statement presents the evidence base and identifies how new strategic infrastructure contributes towards meeting government objectives. New water resources will also be needed meaning that new large infrastructure such as reservoirs or water transfers will be part of the solution. Southern Water are building a new reservoir in Havant - will that supply the extra water required for all the new houses being built in the South East?

P-F
A land warfare conference heard that at Russian rates of fire the UK MILTARY WOULD RUN OUT OF ARTILLERY SHELLS IN JUST 2 DAYS.

A land warfare conference heard that at Russian rates of fire the UK MILTARY WOULD RUN OUT OF ARTILLERY SHELLS IN JUST 2 DAYS.
Written by Edward Lucas on the Comment Page of The Times of July 4 2022 -
"Every soldier's nightmare is looming for Britain's armed forces in the event of a war with Russia. The details are rightly secret (though probably not to the Russians). But the big picture is bleak and clear: Britain lacks the kit for its main military task. Ben Hodges, a retired general who commanded US forces in Europe, told MPs that the British Army got through "every bit of important ammunition" in about 8 days during last year's Warfire exercise. A land warfare onference last week heard that at Russian rates of fire we would run out of artillery hells in just 2 days.
Geography heightens the danger. The most likely war British soldiers face now is in Estonia, a 24-hour, 1,500-mile journey. Our ability to mov large quantities of equipment and supplies across such distance is untested even in peacetime. When our conventional munitions run out, only the overstretched Americans, or nuclear weapons, stand between us and defeat. If Russia can survive the first week, it wins.
Our plight stems from shocking complacency. Britain last conducted a large armoured exercise, in Oman in 2001. The problems it revealed in reliability of equipment and the availability of spare parts, fuel and other supplies have in many cases worsened.
In November, Boris Johnson, with stunningly misplaced confidence, told MPs that the era of big tank battles in Europe was over.
Vladimir Putin did not get that memo. His approach may not be modern. But it is effective. In Syria, he flattened the regime's opponents with relentless bombardment. Now he is doing the same in eastern Ukraine. If Russia thinks Nato's deterrence is flimsy, the Baltic states may be next: not at once, but dangerously soon.
Ukrainian casualties - 18,000 killed or wounded - are larger than our fast-shrinking army's entire infantry. True, are armed forces are far better equipped: Britain has some of the best weapons platforms in the world. But even the most advance tank, warplane or naval vessel is no use if it is missing vital spare parts, has run out of fuel, lacks crew members - or nothing to shoot with.
Helping Ukraine makes political and strategic sense: our freedom and security are at stake there. But it runs down skinny stockpiles further. And it heightens the need for hard, speedy choices about rebuilding our own capabilities before the Kremlin turns elsewhere.
Money alone will not help us move from just-in-time to just-in-case. Production lines are at full stretch. Bottlenecks abound. Lead times are long. Some sub-components come from China.

London close to running out of water, singer says.
Article written by John Reynolds on News for The Times Monday July 4 2022 -
"London is becoming "perilously close to running out of drinking water", Feargal Sharkey, the singer turned pollution campaigner, has warned.
Sharkey, 63, also a former music industry executive, says that the next big issue on the agenda is water shortages, with supplies in London and the south east coming under extreme pressure from a growing population and over-abstraction from chalk aquifers. (London repeatedly gets some water from its River Thames - which as reported at the top of this section with its wet background - is polluted with raw sewage).
London, he said, faces becoming one of the world's most water-stressed cities. A 2017 report by the London Resilience Forum and Thames Water cautioned that drought as a "real and present threat to the capital".
The National Audit Office has also warned that "if more concerted action is not taken now, parts of the south and south east of England will run out of water within the next 20 years.".
Sharkey has had meetings with executives from the water firms, where he is "greeted with groups of people just staring very hard at their notepads, desperately trying not to make eye contact"."

If Russia waits a little while, then the native population of 25 million will have left parts of the south and south east of England when it runs out water within the next 20 years (Since Southern Water published a graph showing for 2 months during 2017, that they had over-abstracted water from the aquifers in Medway's chalk hills, Medway has continued to build thousands of flats and houses. Is this why Southern Water has not published another graph indicating that it is now over-abstracting from those chalk aquifers every month. The percentage of rain that falls on Medway that goes into the ground and then the chalk hills, is reducing due to the new buildings and the paving over of front gardens of new and old homes in Medway. This means that we are likely to run out of any water from any aquifers very soon.).
 

P-G
Decline in Oxygen from Amazon Rainforest

Decline in Oxygen from Amazon Rainforest

Independent of climate, forest cover in southern Amazon may fall to 20% by 2016 (03/09/2008).
Forest cover in the "Arc of Deforestation" of southern Amazonia will decline to around 20 percent in 2016 due to continued logging and conversion of forests for cattle pasture and soy farms, report researchers writing in the journal Environmental Conservation. Analyzing high resolution satellite data from 1984 through 2004 for the Alta Floresta region in northern Mato Grosso, Fernanda Michalski, Carlos Peres and Iain Lake of the University of East Anglia found that forest cover declined from 91.1 percent to 41.7 percent between 1984 and 2004. They note that while the deforestation rate has slowed to around 2 percent per year since peaking at more than 8 percent annually in late 1980s to mid-1990s, renewed expansion of road networks will enable loggers to increasingly exploit remaining forests, leading to degradation and likely eventual conversion for agricultural use. Overall Michalski and colleagues forecast that forest cover in Alta Floresta will fall to 21 percent by 2016, a decline of 77 percent since 1984.

THE AMAZON RAINFOREST PROVIDES OXYGEN FOR THE WORLD - IF THIS DECLINE CONTINUES US HUMANS WILL HAVE NO OXYGEN TO BREATHE.
 

P-H
Destruction of Habitat for Wildlife so that children can ride around a large park on bycycles.

Destruction of Habitat for Wildlife so that children can ride around a large park on bycycles.

Cobtree Manor Park is where I and my friend used to take her dog for a 2 hour walk every week. See Map Cobtree Manor Park and Cobtree Manor 18 hole Public Golf Course (1golf.eu picture shows the golf course with its fairways to the left of the point 2/3rds across the picture from the left, with 2 grassed areas dotted with trees behind a hedge of trees above that golf course - that area is where people walk their dogs) occupy 50 acres of parkland displaying a diverse and maturing collection of trees and shrubs. I would be surprised if Cobtree Manor Park grassed area occupied more than 6 of those 50 acres. The Park Ranger and Maidstone Borough Council have decided that every dog will be put on a lead at this public place with no method of allowing that dog any exercise unless the owners can run with the dog under their byelaws of 1998.

Cobtree Manor Park

To reduce dating in the woods of Cobtree Manor Park (seen as the top right section of the 1golf.eu picture below the Industrial Estates) and to improve the amenities, The Cobtree Officer of Maidstone Borough Council, King Street, Maidstone, Kent. ME15 6JQ has produced a Draft Master Plan and is requesting comments to be forwarded to that Cobtree Officer by noon on Friday 16 April 2010. A copy of the plan is available at Cobtree Manor Cafe for inspection and from this link. As of 9 April the local dog walking area has been moved to the furthest point away from the car park at the end of the woods and notices have been put up showing dogs on leads instead of roaming free.

"The Master Plan sets out a number of improvements which should increase the number of visitors to the park whilst maintaining its heritage and many of its delightful rural features.

Cobtree Manor Park was bequeethed to the people of Maidstone by the late Sir Garrard Tyrewhitt-Drake. Maidstone Borough Council maintains the park as public open space and may, with the consent of the Cobtree Charity and Kent County Council, provide additional facilities for the benefit of the people of Maidstone and other members of the general public.

The master plan proposes a number of new facilities and the council would like to hear your views on each, as well as your views on the overall scheme. Please complete the table overleaf and return it as indicated by noon on Friday 16 April 2010.

Your comments and contributions will be considered carefully by the council, and will help us develop the park in a way which reflects your wishes." from the Cobtree Manor Park - Questionnaire. Written comments on paper should be sent to the Cobtree Officer Brian Latimer or emailed to him at brianlatimer@maidstone.gov.uk and must be in by Friday 16th April 2010.

Comments

It is noted that notices in the park have been requesting members of the untrained public to assist in pruning and clearing in the park. This they have done under the supervision of the staff; to the extent that most of the undergrowth under the trees has been cleared allowing the wind to blow straight through and the loud noise of the motorway to reach the other end of the park. We can now see the Industrial Estate of Aylesford, which we could not before.

In doing this clearing, we did point out to the staff a large area of Tuberous Comfrey which was in a thicket by the Old Iron Gates leading to the hill with the Elephant House on it. The thicket has now been pruned, the Tuberous Comfrey been trampled on and is no longer visible. From Derby City Council Flora of Derbyshire "Tuberous Comfrey is a very rare casual perennial of waysides and rough ground. In recent times, only four locations have been reported, all in lowland, southern and eastern parts of the county (Allen Wood SK3175; Scarcliffe SK4968; Brook Farm SK3027, near Caldwell SK2618). While certainly indigenous to northern Britain, an older record from Crich (SK35) for 1913 has been taken to suggest the plant was once also native to Derbyshire (Clapham 1969)." The proposed rerouting of the Bridle Path to behind the existing pond at the top of the hill with the Elephant House on it would destroy another area of Tuberous Comfrey and trample over a small cemetery of little animals. "It grows wild in European woodlands in damp, dappled shade, & along riverbanks. In the garden it requires persistent moisture & falls flat on a hot dry day, though it won't be as sickly as it momentarily appears & a good ground-soaking perks it right up. So long as it does not experience drought, it will adapt to a wide range of soil conditions from loamy to sandy to clayey, with pH ranging from a bit acidic to a bit alkaline." from paghat.com. Drought will now occur where it was by the Old Iron Gates since the thicket has been "pruned".
We would be sorry to lose the butterflies on the bluebells, bramble and ivy that would be restricted to only the very small area of proposed Wildlife Meadow by the Woods at the bottom of a hill with water springs on it. The wildlife is now being excluded from all the other areas by the "pruning", so that the nettles, brambles etc which had for instance the butterfly life cycle included; are now being ruthlessly removed to create a garden, not a park, with neat little areas. Hopefully the remaining rabbits might be housetrained to mow the grass in rows!

The proposed rerouting of the Bridle Path would also disturb the declining numbers of Great Crested Newts who use that pond.

The proposed Local Dog Walking Area has been placed furthest from the Park Car Park on a 45 degree sloped part of the wood where either badgers or foxes have had their set or lair, with a muddy horizontal path through it, and trampling on the orchids if one strays from that 30 yard length path to use the full area of slope. This Local Dog Walking Area is located in the 3rd Thick line of trees from the right hand side of the bottom of the 1golf.eu picture and you may have the added benefit of being hit by straying golf balls. Since 80% of the people who walk in the area from those Iron Gates up to the Pond and through the grassed areas are walking their dogs, it is assumed that implementing the proposed Master Plan will involve having to either carry their dogs to the Local Dog Walking Area or have them on short leads to that area. At 61 and my friend being 27 years older than me, we would not be strong enough to carry the dog, and we would be sorry to lose the facility to have the bitch unleashed as we can at the moment in all of the Cobtree Manor Park. As of April 9ht this Local Dog walking Area has been moved to the furthest point away from the Golf Club house but still within range of stray golf balls.

Lizzie is a P.A.T. Dog (Pets as Therapy Dog), who looks forward to the exercise in the Park on the days either side of when she visits and comforts the sick in Rochester. "Pets As Therapy is a national charity founded in 1983. It is unique in that it provides therapeutic visits to hospitals, hospices, nursing and care homes, special needs schools and a variety of other venues by volunteers with their own friendly, temperament tested and vaccinated dogs and cats. Since its beginning over 23,000 P.A.T. dogs have been registered into the Pets As Therapy scheme. Every year some of these retire and new dogs, having first been examined and passed on health, temperament, suitability and stability grounds, join Pets As Therapy." It would be a shame to stop this beneficial exercise for a working 14 year old Border Collie.

It is interesting that a lake is proposed that close to the Cafe, with the likelihood of flies pestering the eaters. Presumably the water in it would come from the public mains supply. Why not have used the water from the springs on the hill with the Elephant House on it and the water draining past the old Iron Gates into the ditch beyond? Line the end of the ditch with a pond liner and have the water being used by the rapidly disappearing rabbits and squirrels. The Island beds of Trees and Shrubs with nettles and brambles used to provide shelter from the dogs and people, but these are now being "pruned" to leave no shelter, but it does make it easier to use a tractor mower near them. This lake would be the other side of the Car Park, thus distracting the flies from crossing to the Cafe or Exhibition Areas. The staff did point out to us on the 9th of April an improvement for the wildlife by weaving the cut down branches through the 2 rails and post fence between the park and the golf course with the intention of allowing the bramble to grow through it. I am grateful for the superior knowledge of these staff who consider that rotting timber will not rot the rails of a wooden fence and nor will the bramble - entwined in those rotting branches stopping the wind from going through the space between those rails - not cause those rails to be broken, but we must be grateful for the short time within the life cycle of the butterfly that they will be able to use this facility before the cycle is ended in the autumn/winter clearout and them being shredded.

The Raised Cycle Path in the bottom woods does not seem to have a large enough width to allow ambulances to come and take away the cyclists who have fallen off it. This Cycle Path is at the other end of the woods, so how are you going to stop the cyclists from cycling in the wood, round all the proposed new pathways or on the grass between the car park and the woods, which they have done during the week from the 9th to the 16th April? Shame about the wild flora that might be growing there with its wildlife isn't it? Is Mote Park in Maidstone not big enough for the cyclists?

The new paths up the hill to the rest of the grassed areas may exceed the maximum gradient required for wheelchairs, perhaps those people could be catered for?

One of the walkers we met did say that "Kent County Council now has a policy of banning dogs from public places" and that this might be the policy here?

Since a majority of Cobtree Manor Park has been allocated to the Golf Course in the 1960's, could we not still have a larger area than 30 yards of muddy track to walk the dog who is assisting us?

Leave the area beyond the old Iron Gates to the walkers and people in wheelchairs to have restful walks, and put the children in the remaining area with its woods below it instead of them being allowed to cycle round the entire park. Fence that area off to prevent 4x4s from driving in circles on the grass for their fun, which they did last year, from the Old Iron Gates to the Road by the Entrance, and up from the gates through the cleared woods to stop the access there with metal security fencing or concrete anti-tank bollards. Lock those gates, so that only the staff can get through in vehicles to mow the grass, collect the litter or maintain the trees/shrubbery. Kent Wildlife Trust is across the road from the Golf Course and could assist in plants/wildflower meadows/ponds to create a more friendly place for wildlife and for us to study it with their information about the flora and wildlife - badgers, squirrels, butterflies, great crested newt, tuberous comfrey in the Llama Barn. The current policy of "pruning" everything kills off any overwintering wildlife (caterpillars etc) when put through the shredder - if only 1/3 of the area was tackled each year by getting rid of dead, damaged or diseased material, and then the crossing branches, the wildlife like the badgers might survive by migrating to another part of the park every 2 years. The pruned branches could be put in heaps by the boundary shrubbery to provide material for wildlife like Staghorn beetles. This would also leave the undergowth alone for 2 years, which would reduce the noise from the motorway, the wind howling through and provide shelter for the wildlife from the humans passing by or through that area. The flora could be noted and notices put up to show it to the public, rather than them trampling all over it in the woods, boundary shrubbery or island beds for at least half of the remaining part of the Cobtree Manor Park, when you consider how much has been given of the estate to the few who play golf.

Since there have only been 2 visitors to this site who have emailed me in the last 2 years, the above comments may be a waste of time, since written comments on paper to the Cobtree Officer Brian Latimer or emailed to him at brianlatimer@maidstone.gov.uk must be in by Friday 16th April 2010 and not emailed to me.

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Monitoring of Trees in pavements in Funchal, Madeira from September 2019 to February 2020 1, 2
after the pages below were produced in 2018 and 2019
Problems with trees in pavements in Funchal, Madeira in January/February 2018
PROBLEMS WITH TREES IN PAVEMENTS IN FUNCHAL, MADEIRA IN JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2019
Death of tree roots and
Death of tree trunks/branches caused by people.
Solution to problems for trees caused by people using irrigation -
Growth of Pollarded Tree in Hotel Garden in 1 year provides a water solution to this destruction.
Damage to Tree Trunks 1, 2, 3, 4 caused by people,
Damage to Tree Roots caused by people,
Area of Open Ground round trees,
New Trees in pavements 1, 2,
Irrigation of current trees,
Watersprouts on trees,
Crossing Branches in trees,
Utility Equipment with tree Foliage,
Lights on trees,
Bycycle Lane in Pavement,
Public Gardens alongside pavements,
Hotel/Private Gardens alongside pavements,
Current Permeable Pavement Surface round trees and
Irrigation and Fertilising of trees.
Camera Photo Galleries:-
Pavements of Funchal, Madeira
Damage to Trees
1, 2, 3, 4.
Will visitors to Madeira worry about having branches or trees in public places fall on them? No; according to Engineer Francisco Pedro Freitas Andrade of Est. Marmeleiros, No 1, Jardins & Espaces Verdes who is Chef de Diviso Câmara Municipal do Funchal; Departamento de Ciência e de Recursos Naturais; Divisão de Jardins e Espaços Verdes Urbanos in charge of the trees within the pavements within the area controlled by Funchal Municipality - See Monitoring of Trees in pavements in Funchal, Madeira from September 2019 to February 2010 1, 2 pages by his department.
PROBLEMS WITH TREES IN PAVEMENTS IN ST. PETER PORT, GUERNSEY IN SEPTEMBER 2019
Demise of trees in pavements in St. Peter Port, Guernsey caused by people, to their Roots

Britain runs out of food during summer of 2024. If a worker is on State Benefits and is only allowed to work up 15 hours 59 minutes a week at minimum wage, then with these extra new border control food charges it will cost that person 12% of their gross wage each week and 12% extra if they are supporting their child; from 30 April 2024.

8 problems caused by building house on clay or
with house-wall attached to clay.
Pre-building work on polluted soil.
OTHER TABLE 5 is about warnings of the government in the UK turning its population into slaves.

TABLE SOS where the action of humans breathing produces carbon dioxide and the trees/plants/algae cannot process that; because we either cover the roots in concrete/tarmac or kill the algae in the sea from the phosphorus in the human produced sewage. So we are slowly asphixiating ourselves in the UK.
The level of oxygen refers to the amount of oxygen present in the atmosphere or water. Oxygen is produced by photosynthesizing organisms that live in the ocean, in fresh water, and on land. These organisms include bacteria, algae and plants. Photosynthesizing algae in the ocean produce around 70% of oxygen in the atmosphere. The UK pollution going into the sea is killing the algae which provide 70% of oxygen for UK, France, Holland, Portugal, Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
Row 7 in last table on the right in Black Background - Welcome to the UK (Urinating Knave) with details of UK government backed pollution of millions of tons per year into its rivers; which the sea transported across the Channel to Europe killing marine life and humans.
Pollution is biggest threat to Wildlife on our UK waterways.
Photo of permanent air pollution over London.

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These remaining items are of no interest to people outside the UK,
but will affect you,
if have property in the UK or
intend to reside in the UK for longer than 1 week.

Medway Proposed New School Comments in September 2019

Neighbour cutting branches off our trees without Conservation Area permission and attempting to sink our house with 1000's of litres of their sewage by blocking the drain to our cesspit. For the following week, they continued to download their sewage after we had written to them stating that the cesspit was full and that the drain was blocked.

Gas explosion from incorrectly installed home boiler, with other customers refusing to correct the situation.
Other items in the Home Section which have nothing to do with gardening, but reading them might deter you from visiting Great Britain; or employing its workforce; or trusting its local or main government.

Problems with electrical re-wire in my home, with the knowledge after the event that the client can do nothing about it, since NAPIT requires you to re-use the same contractor to fix the problems.
Would you; after reading these pages? Manderson emails to us about re-wire.
We wrote the
concerns about the electrical work on 21.03.21;
Questions concerning electrics on 21.03.21 and
re-wire narrative on 19.04.2021
which had no effect on the credit card company or NAPIT. So we commisioned the following report to see if that will make any difference.
Pages 10, 11, 12, 13 contain information concerning the condition of the electrical installation of the complete rewiring of my home by Mr Manderson of Manderson Electrical Services Ltd, with the report by a qualified electrician and this statement about the work carried out:-
"The result of my observations and testing, I am recommending that all the fixed wiring be recovered and a complete new fixed wiring installation is installed. Unfortunately the work previously carried out is of such a poor standard I cannot re-use any of it."
Mr Manderson is a Part P Registered Electrician with Napit; Registered Competent Person Electrical; Approved Electrician from Napit; City & Guilds Qualified; Part P Electrical Safety; and Honest & Transparent. His firm was employed to replace all the wiring, power sockets, light switches and lights and make sure that rodents could not attack them to chew through the cables or cause an
electrical problem.
Pages 10 lists 18 electrical faults on the new wiring, re-use of the old wiring, and old wiring that was still either in use or had been cut at the old power socket, at the old light fitting, or old light switch (the plasterers filled an old power socket metal box and short-circuited the fuse - it will be fine in 30 minutes sir; 4 hours later it was still shorting, so presumably that would explain why they switched off one of the fuses in the old fuseboard - see photo on page 15 of the report. As clients; we do appreciate having the opportunity of electrocuting ourselves from their re-wire work) where

• fault 2 is a Code C1 'Danger Present' and immediate action is required from March 2021, (the electricians testing 2 of the double power sockets installed in the kitchen in 1987 found that they were polarity reversed. This risks a short circuit, shock or fire. They corrected the problem immediately)
• Faults 4, 12, 14 and 18 are Code C2 and Urgent remedial action required,
• Faults 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 15, 16, 17 are Code C3 where improvement is recommended

Because we had paid part of the cost to Manderson Electrical Services Ltd using a credit card, then after we had contacted them and sent the report, the credit card company re-imbursed us. We then used that money towards a total removal of all wiring and total rewiring by the electrician who had produced the report.

The above was a pointless waste of time - we have now had the house completely rewired again without any recompense from the original contractor's lies, thiefery and extremely dangerous work with the government body Napit being no help at all. The unfortunate consequence of either buying a house or having anything done to it is that you the owner can and will be totally screwed by the majority of the British Workforce.

I have looked at a job of the third replacement of turf in a back garden of a new house. The back garden was clay and sloped down to the house - that house will have subsidence problems within 10 years. The only way that it might save itself is to rip up the lawn and plant shrubs that will absorb every drop of rain that falls on that garden -
you are not allowed to either drain into the storm drain of the house which is what takes the rain from the roof of the house/garage or
drain the rainwater from your garden to outside your property onto either public land or into somebody else's property.
I refused the job and told the owner to get onto the builders to rectify their error.
Since builders are repeating the same error on a massive scale in Ashford, the poor owners of new £500,000 houses are going to be upset.