The Daily Telegraph 2/7/07

Letters to the Editor

Preventing floods

Sir - Approximately 95 per cent of inland flooding is preventable. There is overwhelming evidence nationally that its crucial cause is neglected river maintenance.

Ever since the Environment Agency took over control of rivers in 1995, maintenance has virtually come to a halt. A well-maintained and dredged river with adequate clearance of encroaching trees and shrubs has a larger capacity and a quicker flow, both of which are needed at times of high rainfall. It is unacceptable for the agency to redefine flood plains, with the resultant increase of home flooding and insurance costs, instead of maintaining rivers.

British rivers are in a state of neglect, but the Environment Agency is still planting in them, and along their banks, willow trees, which are notorious for obstructing flow. They look picturesque, but at the expense of homes being flooded.

The answer is for the Government to put river maintenance back under regional and local flood-prevention engineers, who took pride in and were accountable for their respective areas, as they are in New Zealand.

John P. Lloyd, Chairman, The Flood Prevention Society, Chester   

Link to Telegraph http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/07/02/nosplit/dt0201.xml

Sir - Quite rightly, we are always quick to organise and donate generously to disaster funds for tragedies that have happened thousands of miles away, but less quick to do so for one on our own doorstep.

It is surprising that nobody seems to have set up a fund to help all the poor people who have lost so much in the floods and need assistance to set up home again.

We seem to have forgotten that charity begins at home.

Noreena Elwell, Saltcoats, Ayrshire