I REALLY must take issue with Alex Whittaker's recent letter in which she states: "A number of expert surveys have been completed for flood and traffic volume, which have satisfied the appropriate agencies."

A number of these "expert surveys" were far from "expert" and suffered from serious failings. I will not go into all of I these, however, I will deal briefly I with flooding, something Alex I Whittaker mentions in her letter.

In order to satisfy Planning Policy Statement 25 it is necessary to demonstrate, in flood risk terms, there was no better site available than that on Swinemoor Lane.

To this end a so-called Sequential Test produced on July 19 last year was submitted as part of the Outline Planning application on July 20 last year. This is basically a site matrix in which each possible site is scored against the chosen (Swinemoor Lane) site. However, this test contained an error in that it stated the sites adjacent to the ambulance station were either within areas of high landscape value or outside the development limits.

On these points these sites were allocated a negative mark. The same two planning policies also applied to the Swinemoor Lane site, therefore, the two ambulance station sites should have been allocated the same score as the Swinemoor Lane site, meaning that, overall, they would have scored the same. If this had been the case then the primary care trust (PCT) would have had to consider building on these sites, however, by this time the PCT had already paid a non-refundable deposit on the Swinemoor Lane Site.

My understanding, therefore, is what this boils down to is that the report justifying the choice of site for the hospital was produced some six months after the site had already been chosen.

Kieran A Sheehan, Central Avenue, Beverley.