A council is being urged to provide extra cash to speed up flood defence work.

Lib Dems on East Sussex County Council want part of a £3 million Government windfall to be devoted to defences, particularly in Lewes and Uckfield.

Ringmer county councillor Mary McPherson said the authority was getting more cash than it expected from the Government and some should be passed on to the Environment Agency.

A major programme to improve defences in Lewes, Uckfield and the Ouse Valley is being delayed by 12 months because of a shortage of funds.

Preparatory work will now start in the middle of next year and the engineering work 12 months later.

The project is expected to cost £9 million and take up to three years to complete.

Coun McPherson said: "The people of Lewes have got to know something is happening and, if they know it is on the back burner for a year, they are going to be very, very worried."

Leslie Goode, of the pressure group Lewes Flood Action, said: "We are really worried about the delay and we are even more worried about those delays carrying on."

The Environment Agency will spend £10 million on flood defences in East and West Sussex in 2002/03, largely because it is getting £2.5 million less than it wanted from the Government.

Flood defence manager Rupert Clubb said he was disappointed its budget had been cut.

He said: "It would have been great, of course, to do the preparatory work this year."

County council leader Peter Jones said flood defences had to take their place alongside everything else and making more cash available this year would not speed up the Ouse project.

He said: "It would make no difference to Lewes whether we gave them £1 or £1 million."