More floods are coming to Britain, but you ought to know this: the system that should protect us is a scandal

Last week, the Guardian revealed alarming aspects of governance in several of England’s national parks, whose boards are starkly unrepresentative of the population and lack the expertise required to protect and restore the ecology of our national properties. This chimes with my experience: in some places, park boards appear to behave like private fiefdoms working on behalf of powerful local interests and against the public and environmental good. It’s as though Restore Trust, the opaquely funded reactionaries trying to take over the National Trust, had instead taken over the national parks.