1 Month After Massive Flooding, UK Tory Environment Minister Hasn't Bothered To Visit

The chairman of the Environment Agency, Lord Smith, was condemned by farmers and politicians on Monday after admitting he hasn’t visited Somerset since large areas of the county disappeared underwater a month ago.

He alienated rural Britain further by suggesting that it doesn’t make financial sense to spend money protecting some agricultural land from floods, saying “Town or country, front rooms or farmland…There’s no bottomless purse and we need to make difficult but sensible choices about where and what we try to protect”.

Lord Smith went on to apologise for the first time for not doing more to tackle flooding in Somerset, a move which helped to appease some locals but still left many angry. “It is not until you get on the ground that you realise what it’s like – it’s disappointing that Lord Smith hasn’t visited since last year, it would have been nice,” said Duncan McGinty, head of Sedgemoor District Council.

Anthony Gothard, a dairy farmer near Thornton, near Somerset, added: “It makes me angry and fed up. Does he [Lord Smith] not know about rural life – if you take the industry out of rural areas, what are people going to do?”

EDIT

http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/environment-agency-chair-under-fire-from-farmers-after-he-claimed-government-cant-afford-to-protect-their-land-from-floods-9105314.html