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.