I have never professed to be a civil engineer but I would like to reply to the comments on the letters page (No simple answer to flooding, September 22) by Andrew Vevers and Paul Hepworth.

Take the normal summer level of the Ouse at the Clifton Ings. If the reservoir surface level was at the same level as the river’s summer level or a yard or so higher imagine how many million of gallons of flood water it could hold. And by placing the sluice gates at river level there wouldn’t be any need for pumps - gravity would take care of things.

As for the cycle/footpaths, I imagine they could easily be incorporated into the side of the manmade lake/ reservoir.

DM Deamer, Monkgate, York

HMO crackdown is long overdue

I am writing with respect to the new focus on ‘Houses of Multiple Occupancy’.

Have councils been walking around with eyes wide shut? Where were the housing officers in most of these cases? We all are under so much scrutiny including, apparently, our lifestyle when it comes to finding a dwelling. Yet for more than 30 years all governments ignored the bulging housing benefit bill and paid higher portions of housing benefit to greedy private landlords en mass.

So we now have to swallow the government line that often rancid properties have seen unmonitored occupancy throughout many years.

The next general election will be won by the party that promises to restart a mass programme of genuine new family size homes and decent sized single person’s dwellings with area wage-appropriate rent that doesn’t encourage the authority to use housing benefit.

As a final note please have all private landlords vetted to the most stringent regulations so local authorities know by law how many hard-pressed young people are suffering through unregulated Houses of Multiple Occupancy.

Ian Wilson,

Leader, UK Yorkshire Socialist Alliance Party,

White Street, Selby