Defra Secretary Owen Paterson, who came under fire earlier this week over his handling of river maintenance programmes and flooding in Somerset, announced last night that the army would be drafted in to help alleviate the effects of flooding in the South West. At the height of flooding, 65 km2 (according to the Environment Agency) of land was affected and more rain is expected towards the end of the week.

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The embattled environment secretary has been criticised for overseeing dramatic cuts of river maintenance budgets, which fell from £108 million when the coalition government took charge, to £92 million when Mr Paterson replaced Caroline Spelman as environment secretary and has since been slashed to £70m, with a further ten million reduction scheduled for next year.

The environment secretary visited flood-hit parts of Somerset on Monday, four weeks after flooding began, and angered locals by refusing to engage with the farmers and flood victims who had turned out to meet him. Instead he spoke to selected members of the press and local politicians, and failed to announce any concrete measures to remedy the situation on the Levels.

On Wednesday, Prime Minister David Cameron confirmed that rivers on the Somerset Levels would be dredged as soon as possible. Local Tory councillors and farm groups had been calling for these measures, though the Environment Agency and local wildlife groups maintain that dredging the levels would be an inappropriate response to flooding.

On Wednesday, Ministry of Defence spokespeople acknowledged that meetings had been ongoing with government officials and that MoD personnel would be meeting local councillors in Somerset on Thursday morning. The first military personnel, stationed nearby in Devon, began arriving in Somerset on Thursday morning.

The military will be helping residents of villages such as Muchelney, which have been cut off for weeks. The army is set to ferry people and supplies, including fuel, to and from areas cut off by flooding. It is understood that military personnel and vehicles will also be on stand-by as high tides and forecast rain are set to bring further problems for those in the South-West.

According to the Defra Secretary, local government and military planners entered into discussions on Wednesday, following a meeting of the Cobra emergency committee, but one local government spokesperson told the BBC that discussions with the MoD had been ongoing for over a week.

Farmers and wildlife groups in Somerset have expressed concern about the situation in the long-term, and the potential for more floods in seasons to come. RSPB spokesperson Mark Robins said, "Recent floods provide a foretaste of things to come on the Levels, as extreme weather events become more frequent, and winters become wetter. A long term systematic shift to more resilience is vital for people and wildlife." Wildlife groups have demanded that the government produce an "evidence-based, effective, and sustainable flood management strategy, fit for the 21st century," rather than seeking to appease flood victims in the short-term by acquiescing to calls for dredging.

Mr Paterson, who is widely suspected to be a climate change denier, has also controversially refused to acknowledge a connection between recent unsettled and unseasonable weather, which has led to flooding in many parts of the country, and climate change.   

According to Met Office data, areas of Southern England have already seen over twice the average monthly rainfall for January.

There are currently 30 active flood warnings in the UK which are serious enough to require immediate action, according to the Environment Agency. The warnings are spread across the country, with most in the South-West and the Midlands. There are currently no active severe flood warnings.