VBB wrote:
This may be of interest:
"My excavations were commenced in the month of September, after a long continuance of dry weather, so that the adjacent little stream - the Kennet - had been dried up for more than two months:"
Alfred Charles Pass, 'Recent Explorations at Silbury Hill' Wiltshire Archaeological and Natural History Society Magazine 23 (1887) pp. 245-254.
Thanks VBB, that's interesting and suggests that there is nothing new in the upper Kennet drying up after a hot summer. We have to assume that Alfred Charles Pass
was talking about the Kennet and not the Winterbourne - which is a stream that also runs adjacent to Silbury and takes its name from the fact that it only flows in winter.
I think perhaps this thread has run its course, as the point I was originally making was based on the local news item below:
http://www.swindonadvertiser.co.uk/news/4585367.River_threatened_by_house_building/
My point was, is it environmentally ethical for water companies to deplete a fragile chalkland river to service dense housing projects being thrown up around the edges of a large town 12 miles away. Believe me these developments are dense; out of curiosity I recently looked at an 'apartment' in a development being built on the site of the old Princess Margaret Hospital. Although allegedly two bedroomed, it was tiny but it had two bathrooms - because 'that's what people want'. I couldn't wait to get back to my ramshackle Victorian terrace.
We can't really talk about housing/water shortages/populations without touching on politics and, apart from the fact that no-one believes politicians anymore, I don't think that is what this forum is for.
