IN response to the two letters on April 22 about ensuring York is protected against such severe flooding in coming years, I would like to raise the following points:

1 If the improvements to the flood defences are not to be upgraded fully for three years, how do the council and Environment Agency intend to protect businesses and people living in flood risk properties until then?

Meteorological records show that our overall climate conditions have become such that mild, wet weather and freak storms are a much more common occurrence than when the existing barriers were designed and installed in the 1980s.

2 In light of the fact that we live in a city with two rivers, one of which, the Ouse, is tidal (despite having some control by locks), I feel that the council should give its citizens a long term undertaking that it will cease to grant planning permission for any further building on known flood plains.

Maureen Brownbridge, Eastfield Crescent, York