Greed behind West Cumbria flood disaster

IT WAS five years ago that United Utilities, which owns the Thirlmere reservoir (above), was first asked to lower the water level during the Autumn so that there was additional capacity to hold the winter rains coming off the Lake District Fells.

The private company refused to do so, claiming that its priority was to keep the reservoir full to the brim so that it could provide the necessary water to meet the needs of 300,000 homes in Greater Manchester.

Back in 2005, both Keswick and Cockermouth were flooded because when the above average rainfall filled Thirlmere to over-flowing, the excess water turned the River Greta into a raging torrent.

It was deja vu this November when heavy rainfall caused Thirlmere to overflow yet again. The result this time was that not only were Keswick and Cockermouth flooded again but also the main Northside bridge in Workington was swept away and PC Bill Barker lost his life preventing a major disaster by stopping cars from crossing the bridge.

Again, prior to the disaster, the Thirlmere Reservoir was full to the brim. This time to make the problem worse, work was being carried out on the Manchester aqueduct restricting the amount of water making its way down to the city which meant the reservoir was overflowing even before the heavy rains of November 19th.

If the water level in Thirlmere had been 3 meters below the reservoir wall, as was called for back in 2005, then this disaster wouldn't have happened because the abnormal rainfall would have been easily absorbed.

Critics of United Utilities say the company keeps the water level high so that water can be pumped out to Manchester using the existing equipment. If the water level was to drop, then new, more efficient pumps, would have to be purchased which would eat into the company's profits and its shareholders' returns.

There is no doubt that the high water level in Thirlmere was responsible for the devastation caused in Workington and Cockermouth.

Water levels in the reservoir are the responsibility of United Utilities so the company should be footing the bill for the damage they have caused and making sure that in the future the water level Thirlmere is never over the 3 meters from the top mark.

Anorak Time

I shall be standing in Workington at the General Election next May.

I am delighted to have been selected and excited by the prospect. I have promised Allerdale British National Party that I shall be pulling out all the stops to get the best possible result.

Let's take a look at some figures.

Back in May 2005 this was the result in the Workington Constituency.

Tony Cunningham (Lab) 19,554
Judith Pattinson (Con) 12,659
Kate Clarkson (Lib-Dem) 5,815
Mark Richardson (UKIP) 1,328
John Peacock (Ind) 381

The votes at the County Council Elections in June for the electoral divisions that include the 25 borough wards that make up the Workington constituency were as follows . . .

Conservative 7,278
Labour Party 6,865
Liberal Democrat 2,091
British National Party 1,336
Green Party 861
BNP Percentage: 7.2%

That would be a saved deposit for us and no mean feat on the stats considering we only contested 10 of the 25 wards that make up the constituency.

The cumulative votes for these ten wards were:

Labour Party 4,041
Conservative 1,666
British National Party 1,336
Liberal Democrats 892
BNP Percentage: 16.8%

Now that is a very useful vote share and I'm confident that it can be built on over the next six months.

Work is already underway on the campaign strategy and I'm jotting down ideas for the literature. First job next week is a newsletter to our considerable enquiry and membership list within the constituency to start geeing people up for the hard slog ahead.

Elections . . . I just love them!

Ashfield might be a BNP 'Dark Horse'

600 mile round trip yesterday to pick up my youngest daughter from Uni. She had to move out of her house as she's off to France for a year in September so the car was full of her belongings.

I left at 6.00am and was back, drinking a Bucks Fizz in the garden, at 6.00pm. Just an 8 minute pick-up before starting the return journey. Understandably I'm feeling a bit tired this morning.

I spoke to the man himself on Friday - election guru Eddy Butler - and he tells me we are also fighting the Glasgow North East by-election.

Here's the voting there at the European Elections:

Labour Party 5244
Scottish National Party (SNP) 3177
Green Party 822
United Kingdom Independance Party 618
Conservative and Unionist Party 561
British National Party 545
Liberal Democrats 533
BNP Percentage: 4.4%

That's a very promising result - could we be in with a chance of saving our deposit?

I was pleased to hear yesterday from Michael Clarke, the British National Party's organiser in Ashfield. He wrote:

"Glad to see Ashfield included in your list for the General Election.

"However, to add a bit of meat to the bones, the figures you give are for the Ashfield District Council area.

"The boundaries for the parliamentary seat have recently changed dramatically in our favour.

"We lose Hucknall (by far our worst area within the district) and gain Brinsley where we polled 40% in 2007 and are currently fighting a by-election.

"Add to this the fact that in the Selston Division we actually TOPPED the poll in the Euros, and we have every reason to feel optimistic of a good result."

That's excellent news and makes Ashfield certainly one to watch out for come May next year if Brown & Co can last that long.

There are boundary changes as well in the Workington constituency where I hope to stand. We lose Keswick which is probably not a good area for us and get a couple of rural wards around Wigton. What a pity it couldn't be Wigton itself - Paul Stafford's 19% vote would have given us a great boost.

My final Freedom has gone to the printers and later this week I hope to meet up with the new editor Mark Collett to hand everything over.

Ready and Waiting in Workington

Five miles on the exercise bike listening to Brian Matthew's Sounds of the Sixties, always starts a Saturday morning. Crossroads theme tune brought back a flood of memories today.

The exercise bike will hopefully get me in shape for the huge leafleting task we have here in the Workington Parliamentary Constituency if or when a General Election is announced.

We are certainly ready for the off with an introductory leaflet all prepared, costed and ready for the printers. 20,000 of these will go out in the towns of Workington, Cockermouth, Maryport, Aspatria and Silloth. There are teams in place in each town to get them out.

Workington has real potential for the British National Party. In the May elections this year, one-third of those who voted within the boundaries of the parliamentary consituency didn't support any of the three main parties. The BNP fought three wards polling 30% in two wards in Maryport and 10% in rural Broughton.

In Maryport there hadn't been an election for 12 years such was Labour's dominance. One Labour campaigner told me the BNP wouldn't get 50 votes in the two seats and were wasting our time and money. On polling day we received over 600 votes and provided a mini earthquake under the local Labour Party.

In the third Maryport seat, Labour were returned unopposed and Steve Harris, the local BNP representative, received a lot of stick from voters there for not fielding a BNP candidate . From feedback it seems the BNP would have received around 30% in this ward as well.

I think the same thing could happen in Workington, which means the BNP could be a real wild card in this election in West Cumbria.

On the money side we are struggling. There is a strong groundswell amongst local activists to contest FOUR Cumbrian seats - we couldn't fight any in 2005. Fighting Carlisle, Workington, Copeland and Barrow would mean 160,000 homes down the West Cumbrian coast receiving a BNP leaflet and getting the chance to vote for one of our candidates.

It does seem to make sense as we averaged 18% in six wards fought in Carlisle in May and scored 23% in a Whitehaven (Copeland) by-election the other week. Even in Barrow we managed 10% in one ward. But it will mean the funds will be spread thinly and just an A5 election address looks on the cards when an A4 one would put us on a par with the three main parties.

If anyone can help with vital funds please contact me. It's not vast sums that are needed -around £400 per constituency to upgrade the Royal Mail delivered leaflet from A5 to A4 size.

Deathly Silence from Shepshed

A county council seat was fought last night in one of those key marginals that the political pundits are always talking about.

But surprise, surprise it hasn't been mentioned this morning, despite Labour holding on to the seat and the Cameron bounce hardly leaving the ground.

Why is this?

Probably something to do with BNP candidate Julia Green polling 807 votes which was 20% of those cast.

According to a posting on the BNP Forum, BBC Radio Leicester didn't even acknowledge that the British National Party were standing and after the count interviewed the other three candidates but left Julia out.

Lunchtime news on Radio 4 had time to discuss, in depth, all the opinion polls and even promote the disintegrating UKIP, but no time to report the result of an actual by-election where there was a nearly 40% turnout involving over 4,000 voters.

The establishment and its media are so petrified of providing any BNP bounce.