WITH the recent bad weather and subsequent flooding, have we not learned anything in the past 1,000 years?

When this great and beautiful country, and indeed town, was being founded, our ancestors built all their houses on the "high ground" along the rivers. They realised that the river floods over the "low" parts so best not to build there and thus, their homes rarely flooded.

So why are so many building firms applying for planning permission on the "low" parts of town and alongside the river and why is the council granting them permission?

Lab rats learn quicker than council officers and builders. Or is it that they are all blinded by the lure of a quick profit.

Flooding would not be an issue if people learned that the higher up you are, the less likely the river will come through the front door.

Richard Mellen, Shirley Avenue, York.


* MAY I express our thanks for the magnificent job done by City of York Council at the peak of the recent floods.

The Neighbourhood Services Team, among others Gordon Skaife and Ian Lawton, worked night and day in the Peckitt Street area, sandbagging and pumping, to keep properties dry.

Thanks to their efforts, and the excellent planning and organisation of the York Flood Group, led by Bill Woolley, Jim Breen and colleagues, quite a number of houses that would normally have flooded were spared damage and misery, despite the highest river levels since 2000.

This was a really superb operation and I hope the council will congratulate those involved.

May I also make a correction to your report last Tuesday. I said that the river had reached the level at which my house floods 13 times since 1885 not 1985 - a bit of a difference.

Dr Rupert Hildyard, Friars' Terrace, York.


* IT DID not take long for Persimmon's and City of York Council to jump on the bandwagon when the A19 in Fulford was closed due to flooding, saying that "raising the road could consign this week's flood stricken scenes to the past and spare frustrated motorists".

When the Germany Beck development goes ahead, Andrew Demain, managing director of Persimmon Homes, vowed "the company would not drag its heels on the improvements once planning consent was secured".

Both the council and Persimmon are prepared to readily appease the motorists. How ready are you both to give assurances to the existing residents of Fordlands Road?

Last week, Fordlands Road was closed due to flooding and Fordlands Crescent was flooded near the flats.

If it had got any worse, properties would have been flooded again by water backing up through the drainage system.

Since the 2000 floods, no work has been done to service or replace the valve which is supposed to prevent flood water backing up through the system. It is obviously not fit for purpose and not working.

If you are so convinced you are right about the flooding issues raised at the inquiry, I call on Andrew Demain and City of York Council to provide the existing residents of Fordlands Road written guarantees that they will be free from flooding in the future and they will be not be penalised when getting insurance.

This must be a condition before planning permission is granted to allow building and development work to go ahead on green belt land effected by flooding which, public inquiry or not, is against Government policy.

P A Shepherd, Cherrywood Crescent, Fulford, York.


* WE must congratulate the emergency services once again for their hard work in dealing with the floods, but, as organisations whose purpose it is to respond to the unexpected, aren't they being exploited when we call on them to deal with the foreseen?

Despite brave words and the setting of ambitious targets, this Government (and its predecessors) have done precious little to reduce global warming. Yet, whenever we have severe flooding the same helpless excuse is trotted out - climate change.

We are being palmed off and hoodwinked to draw our attention away from the real causes of all this flooding; the gross neglect over decades of infrastructure maintenance (for example, clearing of drains and dykes, dredging of rivers etc) and criminal disregard in respect of planning approvals allowing developers to profit from building on sites which ordinary members of the public can see are totally unsuitable.

This Government's complacency in respect of the latter is demonstrated when Yvette Cooper, the housing minister, blithely tells us that we've been building on flood plains since Roman times.

This letter is written in a general sense but, getting closer to home, what about Germany Beck?

Jeanne and Bill Murphy, Browney Court, York.