I JUST cannot believe the report by your Hilary Sanders that Coun Mike Knaggs suggests that farmers should be paid to allow their land to be used as "flood plains".
The whole of the "Lake of Pickering" is now a flood plain. This represents some 150 square miles of saturated lowlands, that is 64,000,000 acres, and all of this huge saucer of water has to emerge through a gap from Castle Foot at Malton to Park Road in Norton, some 1,000 yards.
At York, Clifton Ings is always let as summer grazing, as this is regularly flooded in winter. This is not by choice, but of necessity. If it were not so, it would have been developed long ago. The reason for this is that there is no other outlet for this catchment area than through the middle of York.
We, however, are singularly fortunate in having an alternative outlet in Filey Bay, which would not cost anything like the annual rent on 64,000,000 acres.
The whole idea is an insult to our farmers, who already pay considerable drainage rates, and do not want anything else but to carry on farming without interference.
WILF WISE
Scarborough
Updated: 15:11 Monday, January 22, 2001
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