Flood plans impress - but right scheme is needed

We got out of the house on Friday for a look at the plans for the £50m flood barrier to protect Boston from sea flooding.
As everyone says, this is an important development for the town, and it is essential that as many people as possible are aware of it and make their views known.
There is more than one proposal for the scheme, but the one we thought made most sense was a barrier placed of river upstream of Black Sluice Lock to just downstream of
the Maud Foster Drain is being considered.
If that were implemented, a tidal surge would be blocked before it reached the drain, but water flowing from inland could still be pumped around the barrier into the Haven.
To site the barrier upstream of the Maud Foster could still leave the town vulnerable to flooding from the western side if the gates to the drain were overwhelmed by any surge.
Boston's current flood defences offer a standard of protection equivalent to a 2% probability (one in 50 chance) of flooding from a tidal surge in any year, and a new barrier might change this to 0.33 per cent which is a one in 300 chance - not once in every 300 years as the lady from the Environment Agency told us!
The good news for the 900 businesses and 10,000 homes at risk is that the EA lady assured us that flood insurance cover would once again be available to those Bostonians presently denied it, and also at a price which those who are currently lucky enough to find it can afford.
We were promised that once the barrier is in place and working, the Environment Agency would redraw its flood maps and that Boston would have its "high risk" status removed.
Of course, with insurance companies being insurance companies, all this most probably means is that they will find another reason for loading their policies, as we cannot ever recall any policies that we have held going down.
The Environment Agency's exhibition was well attended on the day we went to Black Sluice Lock Cottages to see it. However we think that more people would have gone had the location been better signposted. We found nothing to indicate where it was until we reached the building itself (after some searching,) and then only a small billboard with the news in microscopic print. We were also disappointed to find (after all the hoo-hah about the "restoration" of the buildings) that they have been turned into soulless double-glazed office style buildings rather that being allowed to retain some semblance of their former character.
Questionnaires were being given away for completion either on site or to be sent in by post. But no matter how hard we've looked we can't seem to find an address for where to send them. Surprisingly in this electronic age, the questionnaire is not available on line.
We said at the outset that this development is most important, and in the interests of telling as many people as possible about it, could we suggest that the display boards which comprise the exhibition are put on display somewhere else for a few weeks.
We know that the library is closed for "improvements" (ie painting it a lurid pink and blue) but there must surely be some other public location where they would be displayed for a little while. Failing that, how about in the window of one of the town's empty shops, for instance?

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