Dry

By my reckoning, we in east Kent last have had rain on:

May 4th

May 23rd

July 20th

East Kent, all of Kent, all of south east England, all of southern England, all of eatern England, the Midlands, when viewed from space, is burnt brown. Wales is green, as is parts of NW England.

Here in Kent, as in many places in southern England, we live on chalk downland, where we have a handful of inches, if that, or topsoil on top of chalk bedrock. Rain, even in the best of times seeps through the top soil then soaks away through the chalk. Nature on the downs can survive doughts, but modern life needs more and more water.

The ground here, the soil, is baked hard like concrete, so when the rain falls next, it will just flow away down the hills feeding into bournes. We are expecting storms on Tuesday, where we will get lots of rain, so there will be floods, and the water will just flow away, leaving the ground little more damp.

More and more houses are being built in east Kent with 1,700 being at Richmond Park near Whitfield alone. Each one will demand more of the scarce resources, including water. This is just one.

Such summers as this will, rather than being a once in a lifetime or century event, will be a once in six year event.

Our streams and rivers are dry or running dry, and some are party or totally due to the raw sewerage being illegally pumped into them. Decoades of enviromnmental improvement is being destroyed in the three years of the Government.