More Flooding Destroys Pakistan Communities

Pakistan is calling for UN aid after monsoon rains caused flooding in the province of Sindh, killing at least 200 people and prompting fears of another major disaster.

Almost five million people have been affected as torrential rain submerged more than 20,000 villages.

One can hardly find a dry place in the flood-hit areas

President Asif Ali Zardari asked for the help of the UN and other international organisations over the weekend as further heavy rains were forecast for the coming days. Sindh was among the worst hit region in last year’s floods in Pakistan, which killed about 2,000 people and made 11 million homeless.

The UN, which has described the situation as critical, is carrying out an urgent assessment. Aid organisations warned in July that Pakistan was unprepared for a repeat of flooding with hundreds of thousands still in camps a year after the country’s worst-ever natural disaster.

Witnesses said that the situation appeared to be worse than last year. Amar Guriro, an environmentalist and journalist, said: “One can hardly find a dry place in the flood-hit areas. I found hundreds of the corpses of dead people, goats, buffaloes, cows, donkeys and other animals.”

More than 2,500 relief camps have already been established in the province giving shelter to more than 225,000 people, officials claim. They admit, however, that since all the main roads leading to the affected area are under water it is difficult for supplies to get through. Mr Guiriro said he saw no evidence that food, shelter and medical supplies were reaching those worst affected.

In a statement the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said: “The situation for those impacted by recent monsoons and subsequent floods is critical, with thousands of people in need of life-saving assistance due to the lack of food and safe drinking water and the loss of livelihoods and homes.”

The UN children’s agency said up to 2.5 million children in southern Pakistan had been affected by the monsoon floods

TV can be wonderful. It can save turtles, dolphins and sharks. It can make Tesco roll over. It can even make people eat fish that look rather squiffy. OK, that’s putting it flippantly, but that was the serious bottom line of Hugh’s Fish Fight: The Battle Continues last night, as the chef Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and his sidekick the TV camera combined to become the modern-day, middle-class superheroes whose force would kerpow the hell out of madly unsustainable fishing policies.

As with a traditional superhero, it helped that Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall had such a straightforward moral message; one that he kicked off six months ago in his first Fish Fight. “Things are not just bad, they’re mad,” he said with comic-book simplicity as he reminded us of practices such as “discards”, whereby fish caught that exceed quotas, are too young or too unpopular are simply chucked, dead, back in the sea. To the obscenely wasteful tune of more than a million tonnes per year.

It also helped enormously that, unlike a traditional superhero, Hugh created a gimmick-free zone, a dressed-down approach to revolutionary change with weapons no more controversial than an iPhone app, showing viewers how to cook gurnard instead of cod. Mr Fearnley-Whittingstall neither resorted to dressing up as a mackerel nor weeping salty tears as he pushed for progress (the brief presence of Jamie Oliver reminded us that, in other hands, both would have been viable campaigning methods).

Instead he had started a Mexican wave through the good, old-fashioned means of getting people to write to their MP; one that, backed with camera-power, had led to the funding of a government study and an emergency debate on discards. How gracefully, understatedly Hugh knew how to use the telly. The last large tuna supplier on his hit list converted to friendlier fishing methods not after any guerrilla action but after a one-line e-mail sent to the head honcho. Hugh’s simple PS: “I am being filmed sending this to you so an early reply would be good.”

Of course, the camera wasn’t exclusively a force for good. How daft did the MP Zac Goldsmith look — he who had catalysed the emergency debate — when he almost missed it. Instead of moving to the chamber he was still busy in the lobby, flirting with HF-W’s lens. And note Hugh’s careful phrasing as he took the fight to the EU: “Every MEP in Brussels wants to be seen to be supporting the Fish Fight”. “Seen to” indeed: a comedy rota of MEPs scrabbled to be in-shot with HF-W, some choreographing photo opportunities so explicitly that they even told the chef how to position his hands. As we left Hugh and his remarkable leaps forward, he noted that he would have to keep an eye on this seat of power, to make sure the EU reforms he had pushed for “actually happen”. Implicit in these parting words seemed to be: of all the species we had met on Fish Fight, the slipperiest perhaps is the politician.

New homes are being built in Bovey Tracey – find out more and register your interest in buying a new home on the Monterey Park housing development.


The closure and demolition of the Cardew Pottery in 2008, led to speculation and debate about the future use of the land. The diggers moved in and in record time , a sales centre has been erected at the entrance to Cardew Park and what is now to become Monterey Park – a development of new homes on the edge of the popular town of Bovey Tracey.

New home building in Bovey Tracey at Monterey Park

On the site of the Cardew Pottery in Bovey Tracey, Taylor Wimpey have begun this development of new homes in Devon.

New homes are being built in Bovey Tracey at Monterey Park situated at the end of the Bovey Straights. There will be a range of 2, 3, 4 and 5 bedroom homes for sale.

These new homes will offer a convenient place to live in on the edge of Dartmoor in Devon – home owners will benefit from a level easy walk into Bovey Tracey where there are many facilities and amenities.

The Market Town of Newton Abbot is only four miles away and the A38 provides commuters with a quick, easy road access to Exeter and Plymouth.

First Time Buyer Mortgages

Hopefully there will be help for first-time buyers through a variety of mortgages for one of the selection of  apartments and 2,3,4 & 5 bedroom new houses being built in Bovey Tracey.




Following the 2011 budget statement to help first time buyers get a mortgage,  a £250 million scheme was launched to help first-time buyers who want to buy a new-build property but can’t afford the high deposits.

Under the First Buy Scheme, the government and the housebuilders will jointly provide a 20 per cent loan to top up first-time buyers’ own deposit of 5 per cent. This will allow people to take out a mortgage for 75 per cent of the property.

Loans will be free of charge for the first five years and repaid when the property is resold. The funds will then be recycled to fund more homes for the scheme.

The First Buy Scheme should help 10,000 families to get onto the housing ladder, with the first homes expected to be available from September 2011,  in time to help those looking to buy a new house on the Monterey Park development in Bovey Tracey.

To fnd out more about help for first time buyers visit http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Nl1/Newsroom/Budget/Budget2011/DG_WP195617