Sir – In your letters column on 7 March Andy Webber, a West Oxford resident, wrote `The first flood that affected my wife and I was in 2000, that’s 24 year ago, and still we are waiting for something to be done.
Andy was calling for a group of proactive people to put ideas forward and listen, and sure enough two weeks later we saw an agenda from Cllr Pete Sudbury (Opinion Column, Oxford Times 21 March), and a presentation from Buckinghamshire’s lead local flood authority to Oxford’s Hinksey Park Ward.
The common themes locally are the physical and mental health benefits of flood resilience in all its forms, while for the bigger picture Cllr Sudbury was also stressing the vital role of farmers and landowners in the way they are `farming water'.
So how does that move things forward with the Oxford Flood Scheme? At the Hinksey Park meeting the Environment Agency jokingly put up a slide of the scheme `program' with not a single date.
The audience duly laughed, but the recent public inquiry had heard in Week 1 the truth behind the joke, and in Week 3 that there is a solution.
Andy Webber (like me) was an early member of the Oxford Flood Alliance, and current members were at the Hinksey meeting, where they were calling for flood volunteers (I signed up myself).
This could be the moment when the planning authority starts hearing some work-rounds to make their decision process simpler, bringing us flood alleviation sooner.
Brian Durham, MCIWEM
New Hinksey, Oxford