Britain’s Flooding Crisis ‘Made Worse by the EU’: Green Brussels Bureaucrats have ‘Banned’ River Dredging that Allows Water to Drain Faster, say Farmers

Controversial rules on dredging rivers imposed by the European Union have contributed to the flooding which has wrought devastation across the UK, it was claimed last night.

Brussels bureaucrats, driven by green ideology, have effectively banned dredging which might have prevented rivers bursting their banks, say critics.

Dredging, which took place for centuries on Britain’s waterways, removes silt that builds up at the bottom of rivers and deepens the channel – allowing water to drain away more efficiently.

But anti-EU campaigners and farmers have complained that the European Water Framework Directive, passed into law by Tony Blair’s government in 2000, has outlawed such activity. The directive’s aim is to restore rivers as close as possible to ‘undisturbed natural conditions’.

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