SOME of us in Upton can't help feeling some solidarity with the people of Tuvalu island now preparing to evacuate their community for the safety of New Zealand.

The expert forecast as to the severity of the effects of climate warming and rising water levels is extremely pessimistic.

Under siege in Upton at both ends of the town - at the river end from a proposed private development, and at the other end of the flood plain from a proposed service development - who will take us in when Upton succumbs to inundation?

Perhaps pleading Exceptional Community Need, we should make for the (moral) high ground and turn up at the Scottish border as economic migrants in the certain knowledge at least that, when our time comes, we shall receive our nursing care free at the point of delivery.

WENDY HANDS,

Upton-upon-Severn.