Sir – Having lived in the local community since 1976, I have witnessed many foolhardy things that man is guilty of, and due to global warming caused through mankind’s ignorance to his environment we now have an almost annual flooding through most every community in the British Isles.

But like Canute, man knows best, and building housing on the flood plain is foolhardy and irresponsible to say the least. Because that’s exactly what flood plains do best – flood. As your readers may well appreciate, Mother Nature is really in control, not man.

However, man can triumph over adversity and use his skills in engineering to offset the annual flooding to his benefit, by doing something that the Environment Agency has failed to deliver for many years, that is to build new reservoirs not only to absorb the rain and serve the community with water during drought, but possibly generate electricity via hydro-power and utilise the reservoir for water sports, thereby serving many needs within West Oxfordshire at the same time – grey matter thinking, I believe it’s called, instead of the Canute syndrome.

Then this area of outstanding beauty can thrive once more with man’s ingenuity, instead of bringing out the home guard in the form of a flood group.

Unless the flood group lobbies our MP and Prime Minister David Cameron, the Department for the Environment and Thames Water for a suitable site above Burford and Witney for a sizable reservoir, then floods will continue into the foreseeable future, with or without a Canute.

I have sent a copy of this to Mr Cameron’s office to start the ball rolling as a concerned resident.

Harry Watts, Manor Field, Shilton