LETTERS

OUR RIVERS AND COMMON SENSE

As a retired employee of the Environment Agency, I have to agree with the stance some farmers make over the digging out of becks and rivers (Letters, 6 January). In years gone by a team of land drainage personnel was employed. This team had experienced bosses who would check each beck and river yearly, along with the reports put in by patrolling bailiffs, so the work got done and dusted.

Then in 1992 the agency started taking on more biologists and ecologists, who, in some sort of wisdom and university brainwashing, got most river and beck cleaning work stopped under the