Sir - Thank you for your article describing Mike Hamblett's valiant efforts to map the flooding dangers around Oxford in his canoe and his comment that small jobs done cheaply can be as effective as grand schemes which cost too much.

If you will look in your archives, you will find that after the first major flooding of Earl and Duke Street The Oxford Times published my suggestion that the path between the two streets had once been a ditch, and that restoring it as a ditch would carry away much of the surface water that the new developments at the end of these two streets was causing to form the lake in which the houses found themselves.

'Not enough gradient' declared the city engineer, who insisted that a pump must be installed - at a cost, I believe, of over £30,000 - in order to pump the surface water to the Bullstake Stream.

I pointed out that a gradient of an inch in a mile was all that the Roman engineers needed to build thousands of miles of viaducts, some of which still function today. This was brushed aside. The Romans did not have modern technology!

As you will know, in the last flood the Earl Street pump clogged and failed within hours, and the consequent damage to the homes in Earl and Duke Street has been horrendous. When I pointed out the same solution this year to Mr Kelly, he agreed to it at once, and the path between Earl and Duke Street has now been turned, effectively, into a ditch. I agree with Mr Hamblett. Cheaper, simpler, solutions should always be tried before technology. Widening the culverts at Redbridge should begin at once.

Colin Hannaford, Oxford