Sir,We have all sympathised with the hundreds of people along the Thames and elsewhere who recently have suffered flooding and have been evacuated to temporary accommodation.

It can take months before flooded houses are fit for reoccupation.

Remember the trauma when 6,000 premises in Esher and East Molesey flooded in 1968?

Thanks to global warming flooding is increasing both in extent and frequency.

The government cannot throw sufficient money at the problem and flood defences in some coastal areas are being abandoned.

Do-it-yourself defences can never be 100 per cent.

If you position sandbags outside and install adjustable, neoprene sealed steal plates in doorways, water can still come up through the floor boards, (unless they have been replaced with tiled concrete floors.) Given adequate warning and strength, contents can be moved upstairs.

The sad fact is that insurers are moving towards the exclusion of flood damage from domestic policies in flood plain areas. When this happens houses will become unmortgageable and hence unsaleable.

Ken Livingstone is proposing to build 10,000 houses in flood plain London Gateway.'

Let us hope that planning permission is given only for houses built on reinforced concrete stilts-to lift ground floors above possible flood levels.

The underfloor spaces could be used as car ports or play areas.

It is time we learned from some Third World countries.

Despite DETR advice, permission is still being given for traditional dwellings in many part of the country known to be at risk of flooding, unbelievable, but true.-David Harper, Church Road, Teddington.

January 30, 2003 17:00