Thursday's Letters: Agency should not dismiss local views on flood strategy

All group members have given up many hours of their own time to attend meetings with the Leeds-based FRMS team in the belief that local help would enable the EA to formulate a strategy that would benefit the whole of the River Hull Valley. All the information we have given them is based on fact and can be verified so I was extremely disappointed to read the EA's comments in your article (Yorkshire Post, November 2) which referred to such input as "anecdote".

I feel that this implies that we are more concerned with hazy memories than scientific fact. How can anyone dismiss as anecdote, the flooding devastation caused to East Yorkshire and Hull in 2007 by the EA's neglect of the drainage system?

Our group, however, has serious concerns about some of the scientific data used in the FRMS. We resorted to an old fashioned way to check one measurement on the river – two men, a boat and a tape measure – and proved figures used by the EA to be wrong by 100 per cent. Such errors can cause computer models to be totally inaccurate.

The very least the consultants could do is to check that the figures being used are accurate to ensure that life affecting decisions are not based on flawed data. What use is science if you don't apply a bit of common sense?

From: Margo Voase, High Baswick, Brandesburton, Driffield.

From: James Anthony Bulmer, Whitehall Court, Peel Street, Horbury, Wakefield.

HILARY Benn talks of the coalition cuts and the effect it will have on the Leeds and Wakefield flood defences. Yet, he does not mention all the hurried building work in both cities with monies being conjured up from almost anywhere to get the work done.

All these new buildings are now in danger of being flooded. Shouldn't the basics have been a priority before building commenced? One particular book, written 2,000 years ago, gives the warning: "Do not build on sand." But, as in Leeds and Wakefield, they try to build on water. Bring back Brunel or the architects who built Venice and get some gondoliers.

Church should stear clear of politics

From: John Watson, Hutton Hill, Leyburn.

WHAT a good article by Tom Richmond about the Archbishop of Canterbury (Yorkshire Post, November 9). The leader of the Anglican Church has put his foot in it once again with his pronouncement about the work-shy in this country.

Is he really advocating a life of lethargy and idleness to the small number of people in this land who are too lazy to get a job and who expect the taxpayer to finance their lifestyles?

He has already split the Anglican Church by allowing the ordination of women, something, about which, I couldn't care less, and he seems to be sitting on the fence over the issue of gay priests.

He should follow the example of our Archbishop at York who seems to be a very practical man. I suggest that church leaders should stick to what they do best and leave politics to the politicians. It is time we had a little more down-to-earth pragmatism and basic common sense in our lives, and less religious dogma.

Living in a fantasy land

From: John Fisher, Menwith Hill, Harrogate.

THE reaction to some politicians and trade union leaders to the Government's attempt to control the increasing amount of housing benefit clearly demonstrates the London fantasy land in which some politicians and trade union leaders now live.

Along with Boris Johnson, they viewed the 400 a week housing benefit suggested by the Government as a pittance. It would seem they were happy to see taxpayers footing individual annual housing benefit bills of up to 50,000 a year to keep people living in expensive parts of London that are beyond the wildest dreams of a majority of the working population of London.

The leader of the Opposition Ed Miliband, a politician who has a great future behind him and no plan to solve the nation's present problems, was quick to criticise the Government for their attempts to control this enormous waste of public money.

Could it be that his Labour Party was behind this ill-thought- out scheme to move people, unemployed and employed, into housing totally beyond their present and future earnings?

This has left them permanently dependent on public finance with the hard-working taxpayers, as usual, footing the bill.

Bring back rent tribunals

From: B Ford, Wynmore Crescent, Leeds.

READING your headline "Landlords set to cash in as demand soars" (Yorkshire Post, November 6) reminded me of a similar situation during the last emergency, 1939-45.

During the war, and in order to stop profiteering, it was decided to institute rent tribunals to which people could appeal if they felt they were being subjected to unreasonable demands by their landlord.

I actually used such machinery myself in the early l950s with some success. It can be argued that we are facing a national financial emergency now, when greedy people will seek to take advantage so as to make extortionate profits.

I suggest, therefore, that the Government should re-create rent tribunals in order to pursue its mantra of fairness.

New quango not necessary

From: JMV Mosley, Daisy Lea Lane, Huddersfield.

A PLAN to create a quango to replace Yorkshire Forward must be dropped/cancelled immediately.

Yorkshire Forward only ever went "backwards" – creating luxury jobs purely for the appointed management at a cost of 300m. The public purse was emptied totally by the Labour Government and will remain empty for some time.

Yorkshire Forward was, and remains to be, a bankrupt organisation, having lived and squandered public money over the short period of its existence.

Persons with entrepreneurial skills and enterprise will create jobs, because to fail means they have lost everything. So, they work like mad to create success. That is the only way to succeed and create long-term jobs.

This coalition Government has a hell of a lot of work to do to bring back the "great" in Great Britain. Firstly, by paying off the huge debt created by Brown and his goons.

The Labour Government's past legacy of huge volumes of interest-bearing, borrowed money will make life harder for the general public throughout the UK for a longer period.

Don't write off Obama yet

From: Don Burslam, Elm Road, Dewsbury Moor, Dewsbury.

BERNARD Ingham (Yorkshire Post, November 3) writes off the chances of Barack Obama in 2012 but I think he's wrong.

Having lived some time in the States, I take a close interest in their politics and the Republicans appear to have driven into a cul-de-sac. They are dedicated to the repeal of the health reforms but the Democrats still hold the Senate so they can block it. Even if it gets past the Senate, the President can exercise his veto. It does seem likely, therefore, that the Republicans will be cast as spoilers and appear in a negative light.

Sarah Palin is their only nationally known figure and she does not strike me as a viable candidate for the White House able to appeal to a wide spectrum of voters.

The other wannabes are either people already rejected, eg, Mitt Romney or complete unknowns with only two years to emerge from obscurity.

As the world recovers from the recession, the American economy should benefit by the normal upswing of the cycle so Mr Obama appears well-placed for a second term.

Why weren't the flood defences built while the last Government was in power, or was it cast into the rivers to flow away with the floods to sink and be lost forever?

Will the cuts bring the tears to add to the flood waters, or shall we all drown our sorrows like the weekend binge drinkers or will they have cuts as well?

Petty jealousies do nothing to help rail travellers

From: Clive Booth, Moreton Street, London.

THE East Coast crew waiting at the gates of platform 4 and 5 King's Cross for an inbound East Coast service deliberately closed the gates to passengers of the Grand Central 19:18 service on November 5.

This ill behoves the courtesy East Coast's staff should display to rivals' passengers, but equally where were Grand Central's station staff? What are visitors to make of the petty jealousies between the rival operators? What an indictment it is of the UK in 2010 that we treat rail passengers in this way. They continue to bear the cost of increased fares with very little improvement in service. As a weekly commuter to York from King's Cross, I have stood 16 times this year for the total length of the two hour journey at varying costs of 69 to 128 this year.

Even I'm baffled by the fare tariffs, and try to book as far as three months' ahead to buy discounted tickets. Indeed, on Friday, November 19, I am returning home from King's Cross to York for 18.

It will get me home at midnight. What a triumph.

From: GC Wilson, Forest Crescent, Harrogate.

PERHAPS Directly Operated Rail Services has reduced operating costs by reducing the speed and acceleration of the trains and hence reducing the electrical power consumption (Yorkshire Post, November 5).

This might well account for the slide down the punctuality tables of the East Coast route.

Or it may be that, as a goverment-controlled company, they are sliding back into their old comfortable ways.

In defence of the French

From: Roy Dresser, Chapel Lane, Rawcliffe, Goole.

THE trouble with Terry Palmer's letter ("French left us to fight alone", Yorkshire Post, November 8) is that people like him never let facts get in the way of a myth.

This letter, I feel, is something of an insult to all the men and women of France who fought in two World Wars. In the First World War, Britain lost some 800,000 servicemen. France lost between 1,300,000 and 1,400,000.

How does that equate to "immediate capitulation"?

Has he never heard of Verdun?

England needs home rule

From: Fred Bishop, Bridge Street, Lower Moor, Worcestershire.

MIKE Briggs (Yorkshire Post, November 7) hit a nail, but not on the head, when he says that our problems would be solved with a Ukip government.

We would still have to pay untold billions to subsidise the other countries of the UK.

We need a total rethink and Ukip will not do that. We need a voice for England.

Every country in the world, except England, has its own government. Because of that, we are being ruthlessly exploited by both the British and the EU "governments".

Hammering home a point

From: MJ Wadley, Olive Grove, Harrogate.

THE article on Alan Soper and his tools got my undivided attention and admiration (Yorkshire Post, November 4).

Having worked for many years in a similar environment, I can appreciate what he has achieved in not only using them for so long, but also the set still being intact.It reminded me of a large printed notice I saw some years ago suspended from the ceiling just inside the main entrance to a motor car repair workshop. It stated in large clear letters: "The mechanic who loaned his tools has left."