River Thames lock keepers face losing their jobs despite recent floods, union warns

 
Flooded: Henley-on-Thames in Berkshire, after the Thames burst its banks
Staff|Agency12 January 2014

The Environment Agency is planning a "substantial" cut of the number of lock and weir keepers along the Thames despite the river's recent floods causing huge damage to some communities.

According to the GMB trade union, 90 residential keepers could lose their jobs this year.

Regional officer Frank Minal said the response time to operate weirs and sluices, which regulate water flow, could subsequently "increase from minutes to hours".

Officials said a freeze on recruitment of residential keepers would also be proposed, warning this would increase the risk of flooding and put lives and property at risk.

The new losses would be on top of 1,700 job losses already being planned by the agency, the GMB said.

Many communities are still dealing with the effects of the river bursting its banks following recent storms.

In a statement, the EA insisted the cuts would "not affect" its ability to respond to flooding incidents.

It added it was yet to confirm its budget for 2014/15 but said it was "likely" staff numbers would be reduced from around 11,250 at the end of March 2014 to around 9,700 by October 2014.

Read More

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in