Noah’s flood lasted more than 300 days, a target Watford Council appears to be striving to reach and beat through its mismanagement of our own great Cassiobury Flood.

Perhaps our councillors feel that the citizens of Watford have been particularly sinful and Covid isn’t enough of a punishment? At any rate for much of this year a great deal of the nature reserve part of our park has been under water.

This means that what used to be one of the park’s most pleasant routes – through the meadow area - has been offering a good impression of being a lake; the reserve’s only bird-hide is inaccessible; and one of the park’s most popular paths – running south from the Rustic Bridge by the side of the canal – has been turned into a mini-Victoria Falls.

What is really frustrating about this situation is that, unlike many of life’s other problems, the solution is clear – simply repair the breaches in the bank of the River Gade that are causing the flood.

Seemingly if people ask the council why this work hasn’t been done they are fobbed off with a classic ‘Sir Humphrey’ excuse i.e. that it’s all the fault of someone else; in this case the Environment Agency for not issuing some piece of paper or other.

Buried in the depths of the council website one finds that, according to some rather out-of-date figures, Watford councillors receive indirect payments as individuals approximately £500,000 per year in total.

Given that they have no responsibility for highways, libraries, education, etc, one does wonder what they find to do with their time to justify this expenditure. So I suggest they spend some of it addressing and solving this disgraceful example of bureaucratic inactivity.

Ronald McGrath

Langley Way, Watford