Would Mark Tinnion, regional director of the Environment Agency's (EA) flood risk management, like to tell us how much the Floodline information system costs the taxpayer?

If you call it you might hear something like: "The flood warning for riverside footpaths is still in force, the River Ouse is currently 3.8 metres above normal."

For 99.9 per cent of the population this is, luckily, useless and irrelevant information.

Unfortunately, for the small number of us who are vulnerable to flooding, it is also completely useless. Like most riverside dwellers, I know when there is a real threat. Occasionally I need information - how high the river is likely to rise, what time it will reach the height at which my house floods.

What do I get if I ring Floodline? A very short message saying: "The river is continuing to rise, a peak is expected during Tuesday evening."

This is completely useless to me as I try to decide whether to go to work or stay at home and prepare to be flooded. If Floodline is useless to me, in this situation, what purpose is it serving? I suggest it is a scandalous and idiotic waste of public money.

This is all the more the case, in that in my area at least the EA has apparently decided an information system is a good substitute for doing something to protect vulnerable properties.

Nothing has been done to improve flood defences in York since the disastrous floods of 2000. This house has flooded 13 times in the last 122 years.

If my own and neighbouring properties were defended to a height of 20cm (eight inches) above the height we normally flood, which could be done at a fraction of the cost of Floodline, half of those floods, and the attendant damage, stress and insurance costs, would be averted.

Dr Rupert Hildyard, Friar's Terrace, York.