Sir – We note the article (Plans for £1m flooding prevention plans on show, August 23) about Thames Water’s scheme in Kennington to reduce flood risk.

As you say, the scheme will relieve flooding locally in Kennington and more widely by getting water under the railway more efficiently, so draining the western floodplain more effectively.

At the moment the railway forms a barrier, water pooling to the west and contributing to the flooding of properties upstream, for example along the Botley Road .

This scheme, though not on its own enough to prevent all future flooding, will help and Thames Water deserve the thanks of all whose lives will be the better for it. We would particularly like to highlight that this scheme could not take place without the agreement of four households in Kennington Road.

One of the people concerned is a member of our steering group, so we know that, while Thames Water will do what it can to minimise the impact, the residents will be subject to many months of disruption and noise.

Their gardens will be taken over by contractors. Trees will be felled, shrubs and vegetable plots — labours of love built up over many years — removed for construction work.

Indeed the householders are giving up the ends of their gardens permanently. Although things will be returned as far as possible to their previous state, there is to be no financial compensation. Three of the houses have never flooded, nor were they ever likely to, even without this scheme, so will not benefit from the work.

The people concerned richly deserve a public thank you, through your paper, on behalf of the many who will, in future, as a result of their public-spirited generosity, be much less likely ever to suffer the misery of flooding. Peter Rawcliffe, For the Oxford Flood Alliance