HUNTINGDON S MP is pressing the Environment Secretary to revive three major flood defence schemes that were shelved earlier this year after the Environment Agency s capital budget was reduced. The agency is still hoping to press ahead with a scheme at The

HUNTINGDON'S MP is pressing the Environment Secretary to revive three major flood defence schemes that were shelved earlier this year after the Environment Agency's capital budget was reduced.

The agency is still hoping to press ahead with a scheme at The Paddocks in St Neots, but projects for Godmanchester and for Alconbury and Alconbury Weston are unlikely to start within three years.

MP Jonathan Djanogly, who just weeks ago officially opened the new £8million St Ives and Hemingford flood defences, has written to Hilary Benn, saying the EA had told him that the schemes had been either postponed or cancelled.

"In the light of the flooding we have seen across the country and the flood warnings that are currently in place for St Neots and Godmanchester, I am very concerned about this decision," he wrote last Wednesday.

"It seems short-sighted to be cancelling alleviation schemes for areas that have flooded in the past and continue to be at high risk, particularly when we are now seeing towns and villages flooded that have not flooded in living history. I urge you to reconsider the decision to postpone or cancel these schemes."

Mr Djanogly told The Hunts Post this week: "The best thing of all is that we haven't been flooded here, but I wanted to remind the Minister that these schemes were very well advanced before it cut the national budget. A year ago, they were pretty much 100 per cent happening, we thought.