BACK in February I used this column to update readers on my efforts to secure proper management of water levels in the lower valley of the River Avon between Fordingbridge and Christchurch and I included a letter I had sent to Owen Paterson, the Secretary of State at the Department of the Environment, in which I asked for another meeting to review the situation.

The water meadows of this part of the Avon are the product of hundreds of years of careful management of the water levels.

It is a flood plain, so is supposed to flood, and the extent and duration of that flooding has been managed over the centuries by carefully maintaining the river.

It is acknowledged by its designation as a site of special scientific interest and a RAMSAR site –the highest designation for environmental protection of wetlands.

But all this has been put at risk by a policy decision to discontinue the management of the river levels.

In 2009, the Environment Agency, with the agreement of Natural England, discontinued weed-cutting.

They said they would save £80,000 a year (although contractors have said it could be done for well under half that figure) and Natural England said it would make no difference.

As we warned them at the time, the build-up of weed and consequent silt accumulation has raised the water level substantially with disastrous consequences: the land is becoming derelict and unsightly; it is virtually un-farmable and increasingly hostile to plant and animal life. And the risk of flooding to properties from Fordingbridge to Christchurch is increased. On April 30 I had the meeting I had requested with Owen Paterson and I took along Emma Lane, a councillor from one of the affected parishes.

I started by putting to him a point that has been raised by a number of constituents, namely the Prime Minister’s reported statement earlier this year to the effect that money would be no object. Mr Paterson made it clear to me that this statement refers to recovery from the recent floods and not to the routine maintenance of waterways.

Mr Paterson set out a threefold approach. Firstly, waterways of strategic national importance will be managed by the Environment Agency and the Government will remove obstacles which stand in the way of initiatives to manage those waterways that are not of national strategic importance. Secondly, there is a need for interested parties to come together and create mechanisms, such as “internal drainage boards”, to manage the waterways that are of importance to them. Thirdly, individual landowners need to take appropriate measures themselves to manage the waterways that affect them.

In effect, we have to recreate the old self-reliant initiatives and co-operative arrangements that created this landscape in the first place and which maintained it for centuries, before the Environment Agency came along and supplanted them. I raised two difficulties.

Firstly, we have had a history of Government agencies taking aggressive enforcement action against individuals who have done exactly what the Secretary of State is now asking of them.

Secondly, setting up an internal drainage board will present a number of difficulties which will take time to resolve, and this is time we simply do not have because we need swift action now.

Mr Paterson’s response was to say that this is all the more reason to get on with setting up an internal drainage board with a greater sense of urgency.

He said we will need to bring the Environment Agency and Natural England onside and that he will endeavour to assist with this. It is our own responsibility, however, to bring together all the interested parties and find a way forward.

I will, of course, do what I can to start this process and I do hope that I will have the support of everyone who has admired and enjoyed this beautiful stretch of the river.