LIBERAL Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell recently talked a lot of sense about flood risks and the threat from too many new housing developments.

I find that the flood risks to old terraced properties are increasing.

This could be because of an increase in domestic water usage, old infrastructure such as broken, disconnected or too small drainage pipes, blocked drains or an increase in new housing developments.

Only the experts know best.

However, over the last decade the risk of flash flooding has become a major problem and the Government is going to have to use a large slice of our resources to combat it.

I can't understand why the Government is still considering allowing building on flood plains.

One thing is certain - if builders are allowed to create developments in the countryside, they are replacing the natural countryside with bricks and mortar. The resulting displacement of water then presents a problem when it drains on less land.

Building on brown field sites and stopping building on flood plains is purely common sense. We also need strict immigration controls - after all, we are only a small island.

Councillor Ben Ord, Chairman, Spennymoor Liberal Democrats.

READING the letter from Paul Dobson (HAS, Aug 9) in response to that in which John Heslop blamed Gordon Brown as "one of the men responsible for the recent floods"

(HAS, Aug 6) - combined with recent letters concerning multiculturalism - reminded me of a largely forgotten tradition within the British Isles: that of wasting of the land.

This tradition, which is mainly found within Irish mythology and also forms a central part of Arthurian mythology, holds that if a leader is unfit to lead, nature turns against that land until they are replaced.

While it is understandable to laugh at such a notion, not only is it rather strange that many of the countries struck by natural disasters are all ruled by those unfit to be in power, but in the 1840s when wasting of the land occurred in Ireland, the Irish rose up against their rulers, replaced them and they've prospered ever since.

HE Smith, Spennymoor, Co Durham.