The Level Gauge on the River Avon at Bradford Sewage Works

Has its own Twitter Account

Really...

700 Tons of 1p pieces

Some trivia....

On an unrelated matter I had cause to look at how much small change weighs.

I found this web site....  - which easily calculates the weight / size of piles of money.

Given that we're claiming that the EA has wasted/squandered  £2 million minimum on their antics at Avoncliff  - it's useful I think to do the London Bus /  Nelson's Column  / Football Pitch comparison.

£2 million pounds:

The amount of £ 2,000,000 would have in 1 Penny Coins a weight of 712.00 t. A single stack of money with 200,000,000 Coins would be 330.00 km (205.05 miles) high und would have a volume of at least 136,257.79 litres.The volume is of course strictly speaking smaller. If you would melt the coins down, then you would have a volume of 107,016.62 litres.

So £2 million = a stack of 1p pieces that would reach up to the International Space Station - that's impressive :-)

There is a certain irony in the position of The Environment Agency issuing waste carrier's licenses when they obviously generate a considerable amount of unregulated waste themselves. 

The EA and The HoC Public Accounts Committee

As regular readers here will know - the cost of the debacle at Avoncliff ratchets up as every week passes without a settlement - and by any arithmetic the cost to the public purse alone is now - in our reckoning.... over the £2,000,000 mark and likely a lot more if costs incurred by other agencies is factored in.

It was interesting - and a bit surprising given the revelations listed on the sadly defunct insidetheenvironmentagency blog that the EA hasn't attracted some high profile criticism for its profligate and incompetent antics.

Margaret Hodge MP (Lab : Barking) has been out and about taking some swipes at misbehaviour by officials and companies that have wasted your money in incompetent and actually corrupt ways - for little or no benefit to the population.

Margaret says:
That’s why we urgently need not only a radical rethink of the Civil Service, but also more openness, more accountability and a relentless focus on efficiency and effectiveness.

Sir Humprey Appleby would doubtless be outraged and the EA will set up a resistance organisation 

Listing it all out in the House of Commons committee rooms causes the perpetrators of waste and the self indulgent squandering oafs a few twinges of embarrassment - soon forgotten on a cruise or on a beach somewhere...

I can't help thinking that it shouldn't be shrugged off and that some of the law already on the statute books,  well drafted contracts and especially the binning of gagging clauses involving public employee termination bonuses could quite easily put an end to the abuses.

The Avoncliff debacle of willful waste by EA officials of £2 million+ has more than once been suggested as something that the PAC should concern itself with.

Tom & Jerry? - OK.... and Tweety Pie