This is Somerset --
Locals know best for their own areas
Very good news that David Cameron has promised to start dredging as soon as possible, but dredging should never have been stopped years ago. I hope once it is started again, the Government will have learnt its lesson and dredging will be re-instated permanently, as well as the drainage boards, who have the equipment, money and experience to cope with flooding.
On Breakfast, BBC One, January 28, during a five-minute interview, Anne McIntosh MP, chair of the Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, talked a lot of sense, she also said she had put in a report on climate change and flooding back in July 2013, so why has this report only become public now? Why didn't Kate Marks, the environmental agency flood manager, act on Anne McIntosh's recommendations?
Local residents on the Somerset Levels are paying drainage rates and that money should fund the local drainage boards, as it used to do, and no new money should be needed, instead this money has been going into the bottomless kitty of the Environmental Agency. The agency, Natural England and other posh named quangos should all be disbanded as they are an expensive waste of public money. It is time the Government realised and accepted that local people know best what to do in their own areas.
Helen Capel
Winscombe, North Somerset
Persecutions helped build Christianity
V Heyden (Daily Press January 31) says it is a miracle that Christianity is still here after 2,000 years despite all the persecutions. It's no miracle, it is still here solely because of all the persecutions and brainwashing carried out by the Christians.
After the doctrines and dogmas were invented at the infamous Council of Nicaea in 325 the known world was plunged into the dark age of ignorance. The Christians took over the Roman Empire, closed every school and raised every library to the ground together with their priceless contents. This tragedy culminated in 415 with the murder of Hypatia, the female head of the great library in Alexandria.
We only started to escape from this hell on Earth thanks to the invention of printing reaching Europe from China in 1450. This started the second holy inquisition, but the Christian priests could not kill fast enough to keep up with the printing presses, but they had a jolly good try. In the 1870s we eventually obtained a secretary of state for education, a post that the Roman Empire had before the Christians took over.
Michael Roll
Bristol
Do not let the facts hamper Ukip barbs
Once again Terry Chivers misquotes Nigel Farage in his letter "Guns could protect us – apparently" (Daily Press January 28).
At no time did Mr Farage suggest people in the UK should have the right to carry handguns US style. He said people who enjoy shooting as a sport should not be demonised because of the actions of a few such as at Dunblane or Hungerford, a very different thing from that suggested by Councillor Chivers. But, as ever, the facts do not represent the case Ukip's detractors want to make, so they have to be invented to fit their argument.
Greg Heathcliffe
Swindon, Wiltshire
Will 'wave walls' ever be high enough?
The idea of a "wave wall" is all very well, but will it be good enough for an event such as 1607. There are contemporary accounts recording floods 7ft deep in Almondsbury, and flooding out to Glastonbury
"Protection" is all very well, but it can lull people into a sense of false security
Think of the recent Tunbridge Wells incident, the Environment Agency thought the defences were failing so opened sluices and residents had a metre of water in 20 minutes with no warning
You might also like to search "Blayais", a "Level 2 nuclear event" in France resulting in a total shutdown caused by tides overtopping the flood walls. It received no publicity. This was exactly what happened to Fukushima. Think Oldbury
Alan Aldous
by email
'Antisocial media' is bane of our lives
Why do we persist in referring to Facebook, Twitter et al as "social media" when it is increasingly obvious, from what we read, see hear,, that they are anything but?
"Antisocial media" is a far more fitting appellation!
Robert Readman
Bournemouth, Dorset Reported by This is 13 hours ago.
Locals know best for their own areas
Very good news that David Cameron has promised to start dredging as soon as possible, but dredging should never have been stopped years ago. I hope once it is started again, the Government will have learnt its lesson and dredging will be re-instated permanently, as well as the drainage boards, who have the equipment, money and experience to cope with flooding.
On Breakfast, BBC One, January 28, during a five-minute interview, Anne McIntosh MP, chair of the Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs Committee, talked a lot of sense, she also said she had put in a report on climate change and flooding back in July 2013, so why has this report only become public now? Why didn't Kate Marks, the environmental agency flood manager, act on Anne McIntosh's recommendations?
Local residents on the Somerset Levels are paying drainage rates and that money should fund the local drainage boards, as it used to do, and no new money should be needed, instead this money has been going into the bottomless kitty of the Environmental Agency. The agency, Natural England and other posh named quangos should all be disbanded as they are an expensive waste of public money. It is time the Government realised and accepted that local people know best what to do in their own areas.
Helen Capel
Winscombe, North Somerset
Persecutions helped build Christianity
V Heyden (Daily Press January 31) says it is a miracle that Christianity is still here after 2,000 years despite all the persecutions. It's no miracle, it is still here solely because of all the persecutions and brainwashing carried out by the Christians.
After the doctrines and dogmas were invented at the infamous Council of Nicaea in 325 the known world was plunged into the dark age of ignorance. The Christians took over the Roman Empire, closed every school and raised every library to the ground together with their priceless contents. This tragedy culminated in 415 with the murder of Hypatia, the female head of the great library in Alexandria.
We only started to escape from this hell on Earth thanks to the invention of printing reaching Europe from China in 1450. This started the second holy inquisition, but the Christian priests could not kill fast enough to keep up with the printing presses, but they had a jolly good try. In the 1870s we eventually obtained a secretary of state for education, a post that the Roman Empire had before the Christians took over.
Michael Roll
Bristol
Do not let the facts hamper Ukip barbs
Once again Terry Chivers misquotes Nigel Farage in his letter "Guns could protect us – apparently" (Daily Press January 28).
At no time did Mr Farage suggest people in the UK should have the right to carry handguns US style. He said people who enjoy shooting as a sport should not be demonised because of the actions of a few such as at Dunblane or Hungerford, a very different thing from that suggested by Councillor Chivers. But, as ever, the facts do not represent the case Ukip's detractors want to make, so they have to be invented to fit their argument.
Greg Heathcliffe
Swindon, Wiltshire
Will 'wave walls' ever be high enough?
The idea of a "wave wall" is all very well, but will it be good enough for an event such as 1607. There are contemporary accounts recording floods 7ft deep in Almondsbury, and flooding out to Glastonbury
"Protection" is all very well, but it can lull people into a sense of false security
Think of the recent Tunbridge Wells incident, the Environment Agency thought the defences were failing so opened sluices and residents had a metre of water in 20 minutes with no warning
You might also like to search "Blayais", a "Level 2 nuclear event" in France resulting in a total shutdown caused by tides overtopping the flood walls. It received no publicity. This was exactly what happened to Fukushima. Think Oldbury
Alan Aldous
by email
'Antisocial media' is bane of our lives
Why do we persist in referring to Facebook, Twitter et al as "social media" when it is increasingly obvious, from what we read, see hear,, that they are anything but?
"Antisocial media" is a far more fitting appellation!
Robert Readman
Bournemouth, Dorset Reported by This is 13 hours ago.