Dam Liability....
A report by Peter Williams
How safe are the 2.000 or so dams in Britain? Most of them are built of soil and clay rather than concrete. The vast majority were constructed before the turn of the century. By law, because of past disasters, each one has to be inspected every ten years by qualified engineer.
But PETER Williams discovers that some dams have never been inspected. How many nobody knows, because there are no precise national records even of how many dams we have in the first place. When a dam is inspected improvements need never be done, because no one has the job of checking up. Within the engineering profession there is an increasing worry about these rogue dams. On average, once every two years a dam is in danger of breaking. Has Britain been clever, or lucky, in avoiding a major disaster for 56 years?
Film editor RON RADDON Producer ALAN DOBSON