THE article on flood defences going with the flow (The Press, January 27) spoke of slowing the flow of flood water above Pickering by installing low earthen and log dams (similar to the dams created by beavers) and creating a flood plain.
Nothing has been said of the hedgerow steeplechase in 1997 when the hedgerows regulations came into law. On June 1, 1997, a law came into play to protect important hedges from destruction. Up to and even after that date farmers removed and destroyed mile after mile of hedges, filling in ditches and natural watercourses as they went.
Fields doubled and trebled in size overnight, heavy machinery and large ploughs disturbed the natural underground flow of water, and now water flows off the land instead of being retained as before.
D M Deamer, Monkgate, York
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