Swan song for flood sirens on the Norfolk Coast..?

FLOOD DEFENCE: New sluices at St Germans, near King's Lynn

Flood sirens look set to be abandoned on the Norfolk Coast - because no-one's prepared to fork out to maintain them.

That's the gist of today's EDP front page, which reports:

"A recommendation from senior officers at Norfolk County Council after a three-year study into the sirens' future use has urged councillors to make a final decision and scrap them - because they are unreliable, likely to cause panic, unfit for purpose and cost £42,500 a year to run."

Installed after the devastating floods of 1947 and 1953, the sirens provided emergency warnings in an era when most homes didn't even have phones and weather forecasting was nowhere near as sophisticated as it is today.

Without the will to maintain them - the buck's been passed around the county council, police and Environment Agency as this long-running saga's unfolded - it's pretty clear they're going to be scrapped.

Do we still need them, in an age when we can predict the factors which create the risk of a storm surge - low pressure weather system, spring tide and northerly/north-easterly wind - days in advance..?

The money might not seem a fortune in the scheme of things, but last-minute, drop everything and run to the hills warnings are less likely to save lives and property than advance warnings, coupled with the kind of emergency planning now in place.

While the debate's largely focussed on the coastline, several people calling Radio Norfolk when the news broke earlier today were from the Fens.

Flood risk in the Fens is also being addressed, with a massive new pumping station at St Germans nearing completion.

The picture shows the scale of the sluice being put in place at the end of the Middle Level system of drains and cuts, which stretches all the way inland beyond March and Chatteris.

The debate's not so much about the money, as the most effective way to warn people. Sirens are about as useful as an old boy riding his bike through the village with a loud-hailer, compared to all the kit now in place.

So shouldn't the powers that be devote their time to educating people about that..?