PEOPLE living near the north Kent marshes have voted for no change in the way flooding is managed in the area.

A 15-month-long consultation has discovered residents and groups favour retaining the current method of having flood defences between the marshes and the Thames Estuary.

It had been suggested by consultation organiser Floodscape the defences be moved back to allow the area to flood creating salt marshes and mud flats.

Although residents said they would consider letting small areas flood to increase saltmarsh to add to the ecological value of the area, they would rather keep the defences in place.

And in some cases they wanted the defences built higher to stop future flooding in St Mary's Marshes, north of Strood.

The project also covered an area from Wennington Marshes, south of Rainham, to the Aveley Marshes, near Purfleet.

Floodscape, which is an EU-funded pilot action, will now give the residents' feedback to the Thames Estuary 2100 project, which is planning to protect the 1.25m people at risk from flooding in this area.

It will present its plans to to the Government.

More than 100 people heard about the future of the marshes at the meeting last week.

Dickens Country Protection Society committee member Eileen Harding said the environmental group obviously has a vested interest in the area.

She said: "The consensus of the group was it should remain as it is."

And retired Brenda Nightingale, 65, of North Road, Cliffe, said she attended the meeting because she wanted to know what is going on in the marshes.

She said: "We don't want to see them flooded, we want to see it how it is now.

Floodscape project manager Egon Walesch said: "This is one piece of the jigsaw.

"The project is more about exploring rather than getting to the stage where something is chosen."