YOUR Opinion column quite correctly highlighted the incompetence of the various authorities regarding the blocked Lydbrook culvert carrying the Greathrough brook (river?).

If you had a blocked toilet in your house would you invite a surveyor to report before you got your plunger out to remove the obstruction? I don't think so.

So why didn't the council get out and unblock the culvert the last time it flooded? They actually are supposed to work for us.

I suspect that the culvert could be cleared by practical men, probably getting filthy in the process and being grateful for employment on minimum wages.  This almost certainly would be less cost than a surveyor would charge.

The same day as the opinion column came out  I heard of a Yorkshire town, vulnerable to flooding are having their problem solved by a cheaper method than surrounding the town with ugly flood defences.

They are finding the source of the water and building retaining banks to store the water for slow release in dryer times.

There is even cheaper way to solve Lydbrook's problems. Release beavers into the Greathrough brook. They will do the job for nothing. They would not cause the problems caused by adders, deer or boar and the good people of Lydbrook would be saved a lot of worry.

– The Dreamer, Lydbrook.