East Riding Council claims plans being drawn up for flood management and protection would fail to meet the needs of the county, and leave the area at risk of further severe flooding, as happened with disastrous effects in June 2007. Homes in parts of Beverley and surrounding villages were among those hit by the flooding.

Following pressure from the council, including commencing legal action, the Environment Agency has at the eleventh hour confirmed that it will carry out full consultations, but has also submitted proposals which would redirect current investment in flood defences from rural to densely-populated urban areas.

In the East Riding, the Yorkshire Regional Flood Defence Committee is deferring consideration of the issues until it has consulted local authorities - including the East Riding - but the deadline for responses is very tight and they must be in well before the end of the month.

Councillor Stephen Parnaby, Leader of East Riding Council, said; “While the Environment Agency did concede that it needed to start again and undertake fresh and meaningful consultations, it is disappointing that they are still proposing a strategy that utterly fails to protect rural areas like the East Riding and leaves thousands of homes at risk, not to mention prime farmland on which the local economy depends.”

Coun Parnaby successfully urged this week’s meeting of the council’s Cabinet to oppose the Environment Agency proposals in the strongest terms, as they direct future investment to urban areas at the expense of the East riding and other rural areas.

“We shall be letting the Yorkshire Regional Flood Defence Committee know our views and also lobbying local MPs to take the matter up with the Secretary of State for Defra (Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs),” he said.

The council claims the Environment Agency’s proposals are grossly unfair to the East Riding. Apart from Hull, more properties were subject to flooding in the East Riding - where 6,000 homes were affected - than anywhere else in the country.

The East Riding acts as a drainage basin and source of water supply for many other areas, so the authority says it is inequitable that the area stands to lose existing levels of investment, as well as receiving no benefit from additional national investment in flood protection.

l Beverley MP Graham Stuart has secured a meeting with the chairman and chief executive of the Environment Agency to discuss issues relating to flooding in the East riding.

The meeting will take place on July 6 at the Environment Agency’s headquarters in Westminster.