Prime Minister David Cameron says river dredging will begin as soon as possible to combat severe flooding in the South West of England.
David Cameron has said the government needs to quickly to dredge rivers in order to tackle flooding in the Somerset Levels.
"What I don't want to see is dredging work being held up by arguments in other departments," Mr Cameron said.
"We now need to move more rapidly to the issues like dredging which I think will help to make a long term difference," he added.
Many criticised Mr Cameron's comments arguing that dredging rivers was not the comprehensive answer.
Conservation groups have now stepped in on the debate calling for a more natural solution.
"We should look at how we manage the whole of a river and look particularly at what happens to the water when it originally falls in the hills, in the uplands way upstream," said David Nussbaum, Chief Executive of WWF-UK.
Instead of dredging, critics are calling for nearby farm land to be turned into wetlands which would behave like sponges and soak up the river water.
With heavy rain forecast for the weekend there is a warning of more flooding to come.
Get the latest headlines http://www.telegraph.co.uk/
Subscribe to The Telegraph http://www.youtube.com/subscription_center?add_user=telegraphtv
Like us on Facebook http://www.facebook.com/telegraph.co.uk
Follow us on Twitter https://twitter.com/telegraph
Follow us on Google+ https://plus.google.com/102891355072777008500/
Telegraph.co.uk and YouTube.com/TelegraphTV are websites of The Daily Telegraph, the UK's best-selling quality daily newspaper providing news and analysis on UK and world events, business, sport, lifestyle and culture.
