In any headlong rush to cheer it on to success, let us not forget that both these objectives have for a considerable time been the policy of Pickering and District Civic Society.

We have been actively promoting them to the powers-that-be for quite some time.

We might also remember the quite unjustified attacks in the press on the civic society by Pickering Flood Defence Group denigrating our efforts to promote such schemes. This included banning prominent members of the civic society from attending its meetings and a recent Radio 4 You and Yours programme with the complete nonsense theme that the civic society had single-handed stopped the flood-defence scheme being built. PFDG was stooping very low indeed with that one.

Now the idea of floodwater retention dams (bunds) has been scientifically studied, and pronounced to be not only feasible but a cheap solution to flooding in Pickering, it seems PFDG has had a Road to Damascus moment of conversion, forgotten the single-minded and blinkered campaign to build flood-defence walls and taken up the idea with gusto.

All praise if it succeeds because the more people who promote the idea the more likely it is that the Environment Agency will be stirred to action.

Yet one thought does occur is that an apology to the civic society might not go amiss along the lines of “sorry we were wrong and you were right”.

Needless to say we’re not holding our breath in expectation.

A word of caution might also be justified in that what seems a cheap scheme to ordinary mortals is quite likely in the hands of the Environment Agency and their expensive consultants to turn into a hugely expensive one.

Stuart Harrison

Pickering and District Civic Society

Mill Lane

Pickering