East Sussex environment chiefs face getting only half the increase they want from councils to fund work on vital flood defences.

Councils are resisting Environment Agency demands for a 14 per cent rise in next year's levy for work on coastal and inland flood defences.

Cashed-starved East Sussex County Council and Brighton and Hove City Council are holding out to give an increase of only six or seven per cent.

County councillor Roger Thomas said it would be impossible to give the agency more than half what it wanted unless the Government grant for flood defence work was miraculously high.

Ministers are due to announce the size of next year's Government grant, widely expected to go up by no more than five per cent, this week.

Coun Thomas said: "We have to get the Government to recognise the magnitude of the problem and fund it properly.

"All the promises we got that this was an emergency and there would be lots of money to deal with X, Y and Z don't seem to have come true."

Historic underfunding of flood defences, particularly in East Sussex, is being reflected in the size of the annual grant because of Government funding rules.

Lewes MP Norman Baker said the rules should be changed so areas at high risk of flooding got the money they needed for flood defences.

He said: "People in Lewes will not understand if an obscure Government formula is applied and it works against them."

Without a change in the rules, next year's shortfall could be carried through to 2003/04, when work in the Ouse valley is due to begin.

The levy for flood defence is decided by the Sussex Local Flood Defence Committee, made up of members of East and West Sussex County Councils and Brighton and Hove City Council.

West Sussex County Council, without the budget problems of its partner authorities, wants to pay the full 14 per cent increase.