FARMERS across the UK are to be allowed to maintain ditches on their land, following an announcement by Defra secretary Elizabeth Truss at the Oxford Farming Conference.

Ms Truss said: "Subject to parliamentary approval, we will allow farmers across the country to maintain ditches up to 1.5km long from April, so they can dredge and clear debris and manage the land to stop it getting waterlogged. This follows the successful pilots we started two years ago."

Ms Truss described the measures as "getting rid of red tape". However, critics have said that unregulated clearing of watercourses on farmland is likely to increase the flow of water into built-up areas downstream.

Ms Truss also mooted proposals to give internal drainage boards and other groups more power to maintain local watercourses, and spoke of plans to streamline the agencies which currently deliver countryside services.

Her comments were welcomed by groups such as the NFU and the CLA.

Christopher Price, director of policy at the CLA, said: "We welcome the sensible approach of aligning the Environment Agency and Natural England and support in principle the drive towards further de-centralisation of decision making to farmers and local communities."

On flooding, Ms Truss said: "There is no single answer to improve our resilience to flooding." She mentioned tree-planting, dredging and "improved defences".

She also talked about the new Natural Capital Committee which "will, as part of its remit, look at catchment management and upstream solutions to flooding, learning from innovative programmes like Slowing the Flow in Pickering, which works with nature to reduce risk".

The Government have put in place a six-year plan on flood defences. It is Ms Truss's intention to protect more farmland from flooding.

"Over this decade we will be protecting an additional million acres," she said. "580,000 in the last parliament, and a further 420,000 by 2021."