YP Letters: Lessons of flooding not being learned by greedy developers

A stranded resident is rescued from the recent floods.

ON the very day you published the excellent letter from Paul Rouse (The Yorkshire Post, January 7) regarding the basic blunders which contribute to flooding, details emerge of a controversial scheme to build some 650 homes on Germany Beck, an area in York which is known to flood.

Planning for the estate was passed in 2007 and local people have been fighting to get the decision overturned. The builders are “not for turning” and plan to go ahead with the development in March. Words fail me. One can hardly pick up a newspaper without reading of hair-brained building companies who carry on, with complete disregard for local knowledge, causing misery for the owners of the completed houses when they are ruined by floods.

Surely it is time for a complete review of how plans are passed?

From: Jon Sutcliffe, Beverley.

I’VE watched Bernard Ingham over the years with mixed feelings that changed from grudging respect for a rottweiler, to sympathy (as Thatcher emasculated him into her lapdog) to irritation as he still keeps barking the odds.

Last week he was barking about the whingeing Northern flood victims, who would have nothing to whinge about if their promised flood defence budget had not been cut by his mistress’s successors (The Yorkshire Post, January 6).

I live by the river Hull, Bernard. I’m still waiting for the Environment Agency to clear it like they promised.

Nothing has been done so I’m having a go, just like you in your prime.

From: John Dunkin, Landsdowne Walk, London.

I WOULD be interested if Sir Philip Dilley admitted in his interview for the post as chairman of the Environment Agency that “Barbados is as much my home as Britain”. If this was the case, why he was given the job?

From: ME Wright, Harrogate.

A DOWNING Street spokesperson informs us that “the larger River Aire (flooding) project was not cancelled because it had never been adopted”.

Thousands in the North are struggling valiantly to re-build their lives, homes and businesses. Perhaps they can take some small comfort from the knowledge that, if nothing else, No 10 can be relied upon to ensure that semantics do not disintegrate.