SIR – There must be an election in the air judging by Labour Councillor Richard Udall’s publicity machine cranking into action with ‘photo opportunities in your newspaper (January 11 and 15), and leaflets in St John’s, where I live, trumpeting the virtues of pavement politics.
While I share his disapproval of fly-tipping by the Fortis maintenance skip in Dines Green, or anywhere else, I am bound to ask what he has done to advise people who don’t have cars how they should dispose of rubbish too big to go in their bins but too small to warrant paying for a rubbish removals service.
Take it on the bus to Bilford Road or Hallow Road?
Surely not.
His placard complaining about traffic in St John’s was not an organised protest but merely a ‘photo opportunity’. He was on his own.
Photo opportunities can rebound on you.
On October 3, 2011, for example, our Richard “demanded action on derelict buildings that have stood empty for years” in St John’s, which are owned by Sainsbury’s. I supported him.
He wrote to Sainsbury’s chief executive, who held out the promise that the buildings would be sold and developed.
We are still waiting four and a half years on!
He could take it up with Sainsbury’s again, fully reported with a picture, and hope that it would not still there in another four and a half year’s time.
PETER NIELSEN
Worcester

Brussels needs us more than we need it
SIR – The strongest argument by the ‘remain in EU crowd’ is that by leaving it will harm British trade. But recent evidence has proved those thoughts as nonsense.
Let’s be clear, Brussels needs us more than we need it. We buy far more from the EU than they buy from us.
In fact, for 16 months constant, we have sold far more to the rest of the world, and it looks like it will continue to boom.
Sales to the rest of the world in 2015 outstripped sales to the EU by £17 billion.
We will prosper outside the EU as barmy EU rules mean many businesses are tied up with red tape in doing trade.
GB DIPPER
Leominster

Dredging is not the answer for flooding
SIR – I refer to Amy Dorr’s letter, “More bogs in uplands will prevent floods” (February 4). She says, “The flow of a river can be increased by dredging…”
Not true with inland waterways.
The river Severn, and other rivers with weirs, cannot have their flows increased by dredging because river flow is restricted by the amount of water flowing over successive weirs.
The Severn is essentially a series of “boxes” bounded on two sides by banks, and at each end by weirs.
River water therefore flows from one “box” into another “box,” over successive weirs, until the estuary is reached.
Dredging will thus only increase the depth of each “box,” not the volume of river water flowing over each successive weir.
Ms Dorr will discover, as time passes, that our flooding problems will escalate massively.
A one degree increase in global temperatures increases the amount of atmospheric water vapour by four percent, thus explaining our rainfalls of nearly a foot.
With global temperatures set to increase by at least 30C, our flooding problems are going to become a lot worse than they ever have been before.
Ms Dorr’s generation are going to have to do a lot more than tinkering with rainwater retention in our uplands to cope with the climatological chaos that is now manifesting itself.
N TAYLOR
Worcester

Brexit would create chaos in EU trading
SIR – In the light of N Taylor’s endorsement (February 4) of an earlier letter from JC Butterfield, it is clear that it is impossible to over-repeat the simple fact that our trading with the EU post-Brexit would most definitely not be the easy and simple matter assumed.
The positions of Norway and Switzerland, for instance, are slightly different, but, in essence, in order to trade with the EU, both have to accept all relevant EU directives and rules – without having any say at all in their formulation.
Is that really an attractive proposition?
The whole basis for ensuring a beneficial free market is that nobody be allowed to compete by driving working terms and conditions to the bottom or by offering inferior or dangerous goods and services.
Competition is encouraged on the sole basis of increased efficiency and better working practices and investment. That’s what EU rules are for.
Moreover, there is often a strong hint of insularity, including in Will Richards’ contribution (Letters, February 5, 2016), which seems to deny the global and interconnected way in which the modern world works.
Do these people seriously believe that, after our majorly cheesing-off other EU countries and causing large-scale chaos, these Europeans would be favourably disposed to the UK and the particulars of its trading demands?
It ain’t gonna happen, except in the delusional dreams of the terminally blinkered.
There’s a pronounced requirement for a reality-check.
DAVID BARLOW
Worcester