I WAS listening to The Archers, and the locals in Ambridge were getting upset about the recent floods.

Imagine how the locals in Wickhamford feel almost eight years after the floods when we are told the Environment Agency has done absolutely nothing to reduce the risk of flooding in the village.

The agency has now spent the £350,000 earmarked for Wickhamford elsewhere and if the locals want to do anything about it, it's now up to us to devise a plan.

This was the position set out at a recent parish council meeting where an Environment Agency representative more or less washed his hands of the whole question, with the support, I might add, of our local councillor Liz Eyre.

The extraordinary thing is that within 12 months of the floods, the agency had actually drawn up what appeared to be a decent flood-alleviation plan and promised the money would be available to get on and do the work.

Let's hope the fictional village of Ambridge is better served. It probably will be because no author of fiction could make up something as outrageously, pathetically incompetent as the bureaucratic negativity of the real Environment Agency.

Nigel Hastilow

Wickhamford