I have been helping publicise cyber security threats since 2013 and I was horrified but not shocked by the attack on the NHS. It was bound to happen sometime. It was also small scale compared to what might happen in the future and we are frighteningly unprepared.

An attack in winter which targeted electricity, the internet and communications could be devastating. Without light, heat and phones, the old and vulnerable would be at severe risk and often unable to summon help.

This is not Hollywood paranoia, it is all too probable, but we are not completely helpless. The police and armed forces would have their hands full, it would up to civilian volunteers to cope. Isn’t it time we thought about reviving a form of civil defence?

Volunteers organised on a street by street basis could maintain communications, give aid to those at risk and identify where resources were and where they needed to be. They would also provide reassurance that people were not alone and the community was responding.

We can prepare, we can mitigate the effects of future attacks or we can just wait for it to happen and ask why “they” didn’t warn us. The choice is ours.

James Richards, Scarcroft Road, York

Emergency raises issue of drinking

Following the recent cyber attack on the NHS and the subsequent plea by the hospital authorities for all but the people seriously requiring treatment to avoid the A&E department during the present emergency, it would be of interest to know if there was a decrease in the numbers of self-inflicted drink-related admissions? If not, I wonder if there are any contingency plans in place for the early closure of all premises selling alcohol if the same or similar situation ever arose again? The needs of the many should outweigh the needs of the few.

D M Deamer, Penley’s Grove Street, Monkgate,York

Acomb is not only about charity shops

Several of your readers have recently expressed concern over the number of charity shops and vacant units along York Road and Front Street in Acomb. As a commercial estate agent based in Acomb, I can confirm that all but one of the available units are now under offer.

It is public knowledge that one of the occupiers is to be a national charity, however two of the other units are to be let to an independent retailer offering goods not currently available in Acomb and which should therefore bring some additional variety to the current retail offering. Your correspondents do perhaps paint a rather misleading picture of Acomb however in that whilst there are certainly a good number of charity shops (which incidentally are all well patronised and offer a diverse choice of merchandise) there are numerous other retailers represented including frozen foods, bakers, butcher, cards, eastern European supermarkets, opticians, pharmacies, hairdressers, barbers shops, banks, discount fashions etc, as well as several cafes and takeaway outlets.

Not many suburbs offer such a choice and such diversity of uses makes for an interesting shopping experience. Acomb has certainly been through a rough patch but is now bouncing back.

John Hornsby, Front Street, Acomb

Illegal scooters are pollution menace

There has recently been a lot of attention paid to air pollution caused by road traffic – and not before time. There is, however, one source of traffic fumes that everyone is ignoring.

Some owners of scooters and small motorbikes remove the baffles from their exhausts because they like to make a big noise with their machines just to annoy people. This is completely illegal and of course the baffles are temporarily replaced when the MOT is due.

Apart from the noise nuisance, the exhaust fumes go straight out into the air unfiltered. It is obvious to anyone that these people are breaking the law – you can hear them half a mile away! And yet the police utterly ignore them.

John Walford, Allan Street, York