EU directive to silt up our waterways

From: Mr V Platt, Cold Bath Road, Harrogate.

I BET that 99.9 per cent of British people are unaware of EU directive “EU Natura 2000 Strategy”, adopted and implemented by the Environment Agency (EA).

This demands that certain parts of the UK have to be allowed to flood in order to encourage wildlife habitats in the interest of biodiversity. Under EU rules, no draining of rivers, dykes, ditches or canals was allowed. They had to be encouraged to silt up.

At the time Owen Paterson was the Environment Secretary and any request to dredge or clear debris had to be approved and sanctioned by Brussels; residents’ objections had to be ignored.

So come on, Boris Johnson, if you really mean business, tell the EU to stick their “EU Natura 2000 Strategy” up one of their silted-up backwaters and let us get on with the task of clearing up the mess they’ve created in our beautiful country.

From: John Turley, Dronfield Woodhouse.

PERHAPS Michael Hilder

(The Yorkshire Post, March 4) could enlighten us as to which particular piece of EU legislation, or directive, he believes bans dredging.

I worked for the Environment Agency and its predecessor organisations for over 40 years. Dredging rivers was always an operational issue and was never decided by the EU.

No doubt if Britain was to suffer from a plague of locusts, followed by a sudden death of the first born, then Michael Hilder and others would also blame this on the EU.

From: David Craggs, Shafton Gate, Goldthorpe.

WHEN I saw the photograph in The Yorkshire Post of the floodwater east of Snaith, I got thinking.

Such expanses are often shallow, maybe about a metre in depth. Let’s assume it was a square kilometre. This would give us a total volume in the region of a million cubic metres. Could a large hole be excavated to accommodate this volume?

I am aware that the hole would eventually fill up and river diversion would no longer be possible, but such a system would give threatened villages vital hours to prepare.