For years the various drainage boards have been working to prevent flooding and also damage to agriculture in the Somerset Levels. However following the floods of 2014 when Moorland and Fordgate made world wide headlines it was decided by the authorities that a more official group needed to be funded so as in David Cameron’s words “this could never happen again.”

The Somerset Rivers Authority (SRA) was launched on January 31, 2015 to be the lead player in the battle to end the flooding problems. It was one of the sctions of the Somerset Levels and Moors Flood Action Plan, set up at the Government’s request to reduce the severity of the floods on the lives of residents.

The SRA said: “It will not lessen partners’ and land owners’ existing responsibilities or accountabilities. The existing Flood Risk Management Authorities, including the Internal Drainage Boards, will continue - with increased opportunities to link activities and ensure they benefit from members’ collective experience and knowledge.”

The SRA was set up with £2.7m of Government cash from the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (£1.9m); Somerset County Council (£600k), the county’s five District Councils and the Somerset Drainage Boards Consortium (£200k all together).

It is run by a board of partners from the five district Councils, Somerset County Council, the Environment Agency, the Parrett and Axe Brue Internal Drainage Boards, the Wessex Regional Flood & Coastal Committee and Natural England.

The SRA has asked Government ministers for parliamentary legislation which would establish the SRA as a new statutory body with the power to raise income countywide from householders and from landowners/land occupiers outside Internal Drainage Board areas.

In the meantime, the Department for Communities and Local Government has given Somerset County Council and the five district councils the power to raise a shadow precept of up to 1.25%, for the purpose of funding the Somerset Rivers Authority.

Environment Minister Liz Truss told the Oxford Farming Conference in January 2016 she was “glad the Communities Secretary has given the Authority the power to raise a Shadow Precept from this April on the way to long-term local funding.”