YP Letters: Flood-proof homes could be the future

From: PA Ledwith, Wrench Green, Hackness, North Yorkshire.
A new approach to house design is required to limit damage caused by flooding.A new approach to house design is required to limit damage caused by flooding.
A new approach to house design is required to limit damage caused by flooding.

HAS anyone else thought of raising the houses of these poor people suffering from the present flooding?

My suggestion would be to empty the ground floor, strengthen the ceiling of the present downstairs rooms and move the kitchen and living room into present bedrooms and put bedrooms into the loft space.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Surely some clever architect can plan things and perhaps people could be back home sooner? Come on folks, come and use your initiative and help these people once and for all. I send my sincere sympathy to all the sufferers.

From: Ron Farley, Croftway, Camblesforth. Selby.

WITH all the hoo-ha going on with regards to climate change, the only person the only person they have not consulted and “signed up” (so to speak) to the Paris treaty / agreement is the most important of all and the most intransigent, the one who has the most to say, and who will have the last word... Mother Nature.

From: Allan Ramsay, Radcliffe.

IN response to the Saturday night climate deal, Pope Francis said, it will require “a concerted and generous commitment on the part of each one”, and expressed his hope that the agreement will give special attention to the most vulnerable.

How many churches presented “Save the Planet” in their sermon the next day? Why don’t church goers commit more to car sharing and not parking on footpaths?

From: Keith Flint, Harrogate.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

I AGREE with Tom Richmond (The Yorkshire Post, December 12). Why has Environment Secretary Liz Truss not resigned for dereliction of duty, namely her failure to stand up to George Osborne and ensure Britain was spending sufficient money on flood defences?

She is so inept that she makes Labour’s Margaret Beckett, who presided over the introduction of the Rural Payments Agency, look like one of the great Environment Secretaries.

Supporting homeless

From: Geoff Webber, Chairman, Harrogate Homeless Project.

I WRITE on behalf of the Harrogate Homeless Project to thank the many people and organisations that have supported the project with both money and groceries over the past year.

As a registered charity we operate a 16 bedroomed hostel, provide accommodation for another nine clients in rented properties and operate a day centre where homeless and vulnerable people can get a hot meal, a shower, wash their clothes and get professional advice. All this, of course, requires considerable funding and while a few of the beds are supported through a Government grant the bulk comes from voluntary contributions.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Our aim is to provide a hand up – not a hand out, and clients have to sign up to a programme aimed at returning them to the mainstream community.

Homelessness is always a topical subject at this time of year with freezing conditions on the streets compared with the warmth and Christmas cheer enjoyed by the majority of us. To all our supporters, may I say a big thank you on behalf of the project’s staff and clients and wish you all a very Happy Christmas.

Diesel fuel for thought

From: Richard Godley, Whitby.

AS the gradual decline in the price of diesel approaches £1/litre, so I have noticed a gradual decline in the mpg I get from my newish diesel car.

I would hate to think that fuel companies are leaving out the additive packs that normally go into premium brand fuels.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

They don’t put those additives into supermarket fuel anyway, for which reason it doesn’t give the mpg it should, but it would be only too easy to leave additives out of all diesel fuels, to bolster profits against the declining price of Brent Crude which is now only about 17 pence per litre.

The sprout’s proud history

From: Dave Evans, Beverley.

I HOPE that your correspondent (The Yorkshire Post, December 11) was being ironically tongue-in-cheek in suggesting a link between the humble Brussels sprout and an administrative centre of the European Union.

This much-maligned brassica [known in German as Rosenkohl] has been cultivated in Europe for centuries, and long pre-dates the foundation of Belgium, let alone the EU. Some of the earliest documentary references to it date from 1587, but it is thought to have been grown in the Low Countries since at least the 13th century.

Hard times

From: Mr D Pearson, Hull.

I READ your recent Editorial on David Cameron and shake my head in dismay. All I see is more food banks, homelessness, crime on the increase. Zero hour contracts. What chance do the young ones have of getting on the housing ladder? Northern Powerhouse? Just ask the steelworkers in Scunthorpe.