Somerset councillors have urged the Environment Agency (EA) to rethink its planned cuts to flood prevention work on the Levels and Moors.

The EA announced in mid-August that it would be stop maintaining a significant proportion of Somerset's rivers and waterways, having received only 60 per cent of the funding it had requested from the Treasury.

Following an emergency meeting of the South West Association of Drainage Authorities (SWADA) on August 18), local councillors and drainage board representatives passed a motion calling on the EA to reconsider this decision.

The Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) has now added its voice to this call, with board members saying the changes had "infuriated" landowners who were unable to carry out the necessary work under their own steam.

The EA has responded that the cuts represent the work with the least benefit to Somerset residents and would not lead to any significant increase in local flood risk.

The rivers affected by the EA's announcement include:

• The River Avill (near Minehead)
• The Doniford Stream (near Watchet)
• The River Cary (near Castle Cary and Somerton)
• The Galmington Stream, Mill Lease Stream and Sherford Stream and in Taunton
• The Kingsmoor main drain

SRA board chairman Councillor Mike Stanton presented a motion when the board held its most recent meeting in Taunton on September 12.

Mr Stanton (whose Curry Rivel and Langport division was badly hit by flooding in 2012 and 2013/14) said: "I hope everybody's here with the intention of being supportive towards the EA.

"This motion is critical, in a sense, but it's critical of the whole thing that's happening with the EA and the lack of funding."

The motion called for the EA to "reverse its recent letters to landowners announcing the withdrawal of maintenance of watercourses" and to reinstate this maintenance until further assessment and consultation with the drainage boards had taken place.

Councillor Ros Wyke (Liberal Democrat, Mendip West) said that landowners in her division (which borders Glastonbury, Street and Wells) were "infuriated" by the EA's attitude to this issue.

She said: "I've been attending a number of parish council meetings in the last few days and weeks, and a number of people have talked with quite strong feelings about the letters they have received.

"The interesting thing was that there was a degree of understanding of why the work was being withdrawn – but the element of the letter which infuriated everybody was that if you were now responsible for doing work on your own land, you've got to go and get permission from the EA before you can get it.

"Given the responsiveness of the EA for licences and approvals, they felt this was the final straw.

"We have a lot of people wanting to go unilaterally to just get on and sort things out for themselves. I'm sure not necessarily that's what we want, but that is the outcome I'm seeing on the ground at the moment."

SRA vice-chairman Tony Bradford, who sits on the Parrett Internal Drainage Board, claimed the latest notices were part of a broader pattern of the EA stepping back from essential maintenance.

He opined: "It's a sad announcement that they're going to withdraw maintenance from a lot of these rivers, but it's not a sudden thing.

"There's a lot of work on these rivers that hasn't been done for years – we've been sleepwalking into this for a long time.

"I live next door to an EA depot and I see activities taking place and money being spent with no flood risk benefit to man nor beast.

"You need someone to prioritize what you're going to do. The money spent on cutting grass around local trees could have been put better to use in flood risk management.

"You need somebody in the area with a bit of common sense to go around and say: 'We've cut this out because it's not going to do any benefit to anybody'.

"You've got to make what you've got go further, and you've got to really dig into what you're doing and prioritize what has most benefit."

Piers Hooper, the EA's operations manager for Wessex west flood and coastal risk management, said that the agency would continue to manage and operate Somerset's key flood prevention assets, and that the cuts would not put residents at significant risk.

He said: "It's important to note that we still do spend many millions of pounds every year across Somerset.

"We maintain hundreds of assets, maintaining water level control structures, sluices, weir, pumping stations and our flood warning service. We do also consider the amount of proactive maintenance.

"These notices don't actually represent the further deterioration in the programme.

"These notices are to reflect the existing reality that this work is unlikely to be funded again in future, because it does represent the lowest cost-benefit work for which we bid.

"The question really is: do we continue to bid for this work, or do we say this is highly unlikely under the current funding arrangements and stop bidding for it?"

Mr Hooper went on to claim that the EA has historically received "between 40 per cent and 60 per cent" of the money for which it applied to central government – meaning that decisions over which projects are prioritised are familiar and inevitable.

The EA has offered the SRA and drainage boards the opportunity to take part in further consultation over the sites where maintenance will be withdrawn.

Mr Hooper added: "We're absolutely up for making sure that we consult and take all available views into consideration.

"But we have to be realistic and understand that unless there is a considerable injection of sustained funding, those sorts of works will continue to be unaffordable in the near-future, on the current basis."

The motion was unanimously backed by voting members of the SRA board.