"GLOBAL warming is coming so we will spend £51m, on flood defences over the next four years," said Deputy Prime Minister Mr John Prescott after he and the Prime Minister got their wellingtons wet in our area.

Howden and Goole are 20 miles south of York and are where the Rivers Ouse, Derwent and Trent meet and enter the Humber. They are about 50 miles from the North Sea. Parts of the area up to the North Sea are below sea and river level.

Over the past 20 years, houses have been built on fields around York previously designated as traditional overflow flooding areas. The new flood defences at York and Cawood have forced the excess water down river to us on its way to the sea resulting in water levels getting ever nearer the top of the existing river bank.

We have been lucky so far because we have not had the overdue 15, 25 and 100 years flood or an overdue North Sea surge meeting fast-flowing floods water coming from the Dales in the opposite direction. But we must be alert to the effect any proposed additional flood defences between us and the Dales will have on us because that water must go somewhere.

About five years ago, £100m was spent raising the Goole bank but precious little on the Howdon side.

We pay £1.8m an hour each and every day to Brussels and get less than half back. Over a four year period we will pay more than £72 billion. One day's contribution to the EU roughly equals Mr Prescott's grant for flood defences.

Not one local MEP or MP has disputed these figures so they must be right.

Mr Prescott proposes to spend half the cost of the Goole defence spread across the whole of the UK over four years to protect some people and some buildings.

So which of our people and buildings are to be regarded as dispensable?

Bob Lewis,

Boothgate Close,

Howden.

...HAVING seen the despair of some of the residents of the Wain Holmes at Barlby on TV at the weekend regarding the floodwater entering their homes, I must say how sorry I feel for them. But to me it comes as no surprise.

The type of soil near the river is known as warp land, which was deposited by the river annually over the centuries and is still low-lying.

About 25 years ago my father was granted planning permission to build at Hemingbrough on the same type of land, the only condition being, that they were built above the 1947 flood level, which my father agreed was a very wise decision by the planning officer, and so in due course they were built upon a mound, by Hogg the builder.

Can you imagine my surprise when the Wain homes were built at ground level upon a field, which was always a very wet field when Mr S Blair farmed it.

Why were they not also built above the 1947 flood level?

The land and the river had not altered, only the planning conditions.

Could it be that the 1947 type of floods only happen once in 100 years? Malton and York area were flooded 18 months ago, and now this year it is Barlby as well.

Are we to be told yet again it can happen only once in 100 years?

R Chilvers

Landing Lane

Hemingbrough, Selby.

...I suppose it was inevitable that as soon as the rivers rose and we had

sustained rainfall the greens and 'Friends of the Earth' would emerge from the woodwork and put the blame for it all on mankind and global warming. Approximately half of the climatologists in the USA insist there is global cooling and not warming, they state that the statistics used in the computer simulations do not go back far enough.

No doubt these are the group which

said that we were entering another Ice Age during the Seventies.

What is not in any doubt is that over the centuries we have alternated with

warm and wet and cold and freezing variations in climate. For example in the year 1000AD, Edinburgh was as warm as modern-day London yet both London and York held ice fairs on their rivers in between.

In 100AD the Romans found Britain

much warmer than it is today yet in the sixth century there was a sustained

period of cold which caused great famines across Europe.

As to the burning of fossil fuels, mans' puny efforts have little effect

whatsoever. I have read only this week that the rice paddy fields of the world produce more halogen gasses than man did with his aerosols - so are the greens and Friends going to starve much of Asia to save the ozone layer?

My conclusion is that we should treat their highly-inflated comments

with derision and go back to enjoying life

without the feelings of guilt when we want to use our cars or jet off to the

sun.

Dave Marsh

Millfield Lane, York.

...ON behalf of my family I would like to say thank you to everyone involved in keeping the floods away from our door.

An extra thank you goes out to the staff of the Yorkshire Air Museum for bringing their fire tender Thunderbird and for working so hard to keep the sewers clear.

No matter what happens during the next few days, we are grateful for the hard work they have already given.

The McManus family.

Swinerton Avenue,

Leeman Road, York.