WE ARE strongly opposed to the Environment Agency decision to replace Northmoor Weir (last Monday’s Oxford Mail.

Replacement is proposed on health and safety grounds – that manually lifting the weir paddles involves using excessive force.

Ergonomic assessments are used to justify this. There is real doubt as to the validity of these assessments.

There is no history of significant associated injury at this weir, over many decades.

The retired lock-keeper sees no need for its replacement. There is no flood risk reduction. The present paddle and rymer weir is an important part of our heritage.

Even if one were to grant that there is a problem, our key objection is that the question that has not even been asked, let alone answered, is whether spending £2.6m is justified?

It seems it's ‘fix it at any cost’. Health and safety law does not require that. Flooding itself is a health and safety issue: drowning is, thankfully, rare; but far from rare, and well documented, are physical and mental health problems resulting from being flooded.

Add to that the misery and disruption, and the financial cost to individuals and the wider community. Spending £2.6m on flood risk reduction would achieve vastly more benefits, never mind the others, than spending it on unnecessarily replacing this weir.

People who haven’t been flooded should be concerned too: £2.6m of public money could find better uses in many other parts of our community.

Time is short. Nicola Blackwood MP is fighting hard to stop this project. We are doing what we can. The Prime Minister is aware of the issue; his constituency is on the other bank of the river. We urge people to write to David Cameron asking him to stop this irrational waste of public money.

PETER RAWCLIFFE, chairman, Oxford Flood Alliance