Divert the billions we spend on overseas aid to pay for flood prevention measures: Yorkshire Post Letters

I realise that common sense isn’t very common these days but perhaps we could look into why the River Don and others burst their banks recently and caused devastating floods damaging many hundreds of people.

Flood defence funding farce penalises homeowners in the North: Andrew VineIt is universally accepted that the Environment Agency do not keep rivers or canals free from debris – both natural and man-made – and also made worse by farmers who do not keep ditches free from growth because of, presumably an EU directive to facilitate wildlife, which then gives nowhere for excess water to escape to.

Along with the modern attitude of concreting everywhere if possible, we are looking at a future where one can expect regular flooding to take place. Obviously the blame will be placed squarely on whatever government is in place at the time, but we can circumvent this problem with the minimum of financial cost by diverting some of the hated overseas aid budget, which is currently in excess of £1bn per month, to the people who actually need it in this country right now.

Yorkshire flooding and the Environment Agency's record of failure: Yorkshire Post LettersAfrica, India, China etc can all wait for our help until we have sorted out our own citizens’ problems.