Recent storm shows dredging has worked on Somerset Levels
The dredging of the Somerset Levels has been proven to be the right thing to do, according to the local MP.
Ian Liddell-Grainger says the action, which was taken after catastrophic floods in 2014, has been shown to have been money well spent.
The member for Bridgwater and West Somerset says even after significant rainfall over the past few days, no flooding incidents or threats have been reported on the levels.
He said: "A major dredging programme on the Somerset Levels has paid dividends in keeping the area flood-free despite heavy rain.
"The money invested in a rolling programme to restore rivers and other waterways to their design capacity has lifted the threat of catastrophic flooding from hundreds of families."
He has dismissed as ‘utter nonsense’ claims that funding for dredging did not represent money well spent.
Even after sustained heavy rain in recent days no flooding incidents or threats have been reported anywhere on the Levels.
Mr Liddell-Grainger said a few years ago it would have been a very different matter.
He added: "By now if we hadn’t actually had flooding it would have been threatening and a lot of local people would have been preparing to re-live the nightmare.
"As it is the drainage systems are working entirely as they were intended to; in fact better, thanks to the recent improvements that have been put in place."
In 2014 the area was hit by a second successive but far more severe winter of flooding which drove families out of their homes for weeks and forced a number of companies out of business.
The MP added: "The blame was laid squarely at the door of the Environment Agency which had abandoned the policy of routine dredging which had been followed for eight centuries.
"Since then huge sums have been ploughed into clearing watercourses which had become so badly choked with silt they were unable to clear rainfall quickly enough to prevent disastrous and sustained overtopping of defences.
"It was only thanks to proper drainage that a lot of the local settlements were able to be built in the first place: the crassly incompetent decision to halt the programme effectively wound back the hands of the clock to a time when there was so much water lying that the land was literally uninhabitable.
"We need nothing more than the evidence of our own eyes to prove that continued dredging is the answer – and will continue to be. And anyone who stands up – as they have – in the House of Common and spouts utter nonsense about dredging not being value for money must be completely mad."