WATER PROBLEMS: GLOUCESTER DOCKS
The Main Basin at Gloucester Docks is silting up. This is despite a large scale dredging programme earlier this year carried out by the Canal and River Trust, a charity (1) that manages the Docks and the Gloucester-Sharpness Canal (2). The old normal was a depth of 15 feet, with canal barges and small motor boats happily tied up here. The immediate crisis is driven by silt pumped from the River Severn by Bristol Water (3), a private company tasked with providing clean water to the people to Bristol The context is this summer’s drought. These two agencies, neither of them part of the national or local government, have contradictory interests. Criticism has been aimed at both of them.
This real cause is climate breakdown. Summer drought is here to stay. Some of the discussions I have seen acknowledge this in passing but still slide away from full recognition. It’s as if some problems are too big to contemplate. As the UK government finally learns to be strategic about climate breakdown, and to see it as existential and not just another ‘issue’, the UK will have to be more hands-on. Finding and implementing can’t be left to to charities and private companies with divergent incentives.
Meanwhile the dock’s avian population remains a little bemused, making the best of their changed situation.
(1) https://www.canalrivertrust.org.uk
(2) https://contemplativeinquiry.blog/2024/10/09/waterfront-change/
