SHEET piling will replace sandbags this summer to protect a York community from a repeat of the disastrous floods of 2000.

The piling will plug a gap in the defences near the A19 at Rawcliffe which allowed water from the swollen Ouse to pour across fields and eventually flood 175 homes.

But City of York Council still wants to press for better, long-term defences both for Rawcliffe and other areas of York which were inundated almost six months ago.

Council leader Rod Hills is worried about the time it may take for schemes to be implemented under the traditional funding system, which is dependent on councils from across Yorkshire agreeing to finance the Environment Agency via big levy increases to the Yorkshire Regional Flood Defence Committee.

Now he wants to take a delegation to Government Minister Elliot Morley to see if alternative partnership funding, perhaps involving the city authority, parish councils and the Government, could be arranged to allow relatively small-scale schemes to go ahead more swiftly.

Coun Hills was speaking after a major floods meeting at Kings Manor in York, organised by the council and attended by representatives of the authority, the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Water, parish councils and MPs, including Ann McIntosh and Hugh Bayley.

He said projects costing between £50,000 and £150,000 could bring real benefits to communities, for example by dealing with streams which back up when the Ouse gets too high. He said Yorkshire Water gave the meeting good news about steps being taken to prevent a repeat of the floods which hit Bishopthorpe last autumn.

A delegation is already going from Rawcliffe to London on Monday to press for better defences. Parish council chairman Richard Moore said he wanted experts to come up with the best long-term solution to ensure the area never suffered in the same way again.

Local resident and York councillor Nick Blitz claimed the Treasury had billions available, and it would only cost "peanuts" - perhaps a couple of million pounds - to sort out York's flood problems.

Coun Hills said the meeting was told that a major report on the Ouse, and what was needed to protect communities along it from flooding, would be coming out from the Environment Agency in October.

Updated: 12:05 Saturday, April 28, 2001