I WOULD like to comment on Coun Derek Benfield's statement (as reported in Tuesday's Evening Advertiser) calling for draining the flood plain on the Front Garden.
The top soil there rests on a layer of Kimmeridge clay below which is the water table. If the land is drained and the water table lowered, the clay gradually dries out and cracks up with serious consequences for anything built on it an effect which insurance companies used to call heave.
How would he justify the council's decision to allow house building on the Front Garden to the owners of new houses on the flood plain, when they discover that they are unable to insure the structure of their houses against heave or their contents against flooding?
JOHN C NEWMAN
Bath Road
Swindon
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