DRAINAGE WORK: IT is heartening the hear of Councillor Ben Ord's influence (HAS, Page 4, Dec 18) on Northumbrian Water (NW).

As a result of a single letter, he has apparently persuaded NW to invest considerable sums of money on building additional capacity into the drainage system in the Baff Street area of Spennymoor.

Of course, this work is welcomed and we, the residents, are looking forward to not needing to worry about flooding whenever we get sustained heavy rainfall.

However, while Coun Ord wrote to NW about the flooding problems in July last year, Durham County Council engineers had at that time already been engaged with NW, on behalf of the badly affected residents, for some months.

If Coun Ord had been attending the meetings of the Eden Residents' Association, he would surely have been aware of this.

Thankfully, we can now look forward to the flood risk in our area being substantially reduced. Is this down to Coun Ord's letter? I don't think so. You might ask why it took him 12 years to write to NW. - Pamela McGough, Spennymoor.