YP Letters: Flood defence fiasco reveals Government's policy failures

An aerial picture of Tadcaster at the height of the floods.

I AM pleased to see The Yorkshire Post showing interest in the recent devastating Yorkshire floods unlike our political masters who appear to have ”been there, done that, got the t-shirt” and moved on to the next soundbite. Two years ago, almost to the day, I wrote to you on the same subject.

What’s new? When major flooding occurs, politicians descend on the area with alleged sympathy and vague promises of immediate help always blaming unprecedented rainfall and never questioning the abilities or effectiveness of those who purport to protect us, i.e. the Environment Agency.

Soon those politicians are listening to the vociferous charity-supported environmental lobby. Many of these single-minded environmentalists fail to understand the broader picture of why rivers and drainage systems exist. Nature and mankind can live together, but in this 21st century it seems beyond belief that the Environment Agency fails to maintain in working order rivers, ditches and pumping systems. Perhaps we should be told the reason why? These vested interests have a disproportionate care for wildlife over the human population of this country.

From: John Seymour, Church Fenton, Tadcaster.

MAY I heartily congratulate you on your open letter to David Cameron, your 16 page supplement on the floods, the article by Jack Montgomery entitled “EU has condemned British steel to rust”, and finally, your editorial comment section entitled “Electric shock....where is the long term policy?” (The Yorkshire Post, January 21).

The consensus of these articles shows that this Government, like the last one, has no cohesive effective policies which are being followed through on flood defence, power generation, steel production, etc. All we hear about is “growth, growth, growth!”

Without solid policies which are followed through, on each of the above, where people are put before monetary growth, who is going to provide the labour for monetary growth?

The sooner the population of the UK realise this and push to change the political system to one where they, and this country are put first, and the country is properly and fairly represented, ie proportional representation with a statuary 100 per cent of the electorate voting, this mess is likely to continue ad infinitum, and will always have a rich/poor and North/South divide.