Residents want to raise the banks to protect their homes from flooding

The Environment Agency believes the best long-term option is to allow it to go back to being a tidal estuary that can adapt to climate change.

But local district councils have called for defences to be built, which would keep the valley as it is.

Residents and visitors have three months to give their views, with a decision due to be taken in early 2008.

An exhibition is on display at Seven Sisters Country Park visitor centre throughout the consultation period.

Our recommendation does not mean we will abandon the Cuckmere Harvey Bradshaw, Environment Agency

Drop-in sessions are also being held at the country park, Alfriston War Memorial Hall and Seaford Little Theatre, to enable people to talk to members of the project team.

Harvey Bradshaw, Environment Agency area manager for Kent and East Sussex, said the way flood risk was managed had to change.

"Climate change is presenting us with many challenges," he said.

He said the Environment Agency annually spent up to �50,000 removing shingle from the river mouth to reduce the risk of flooding upstream at Alfriston and Westdean.

Mr Bradshaw said it would cost about �18m to build and maintain river and coastal defences in the Cuckmere Valley over the next 100 years to cope with sea level rises.

Flood risk cash

"There is fierce competition for funding for flood defences and protecting people's homes is rightly a priority.

"In these circumstances we simply cannot justify spending flood risk money here to protect a flood plain."

The Environment Agency is recommending that the maintenance of the defences should be stopped after a two-year notice period, allowing the existing defences to deteriorate.

However, it has stressed it would continue to monitor the area, and continue to remove the shingle in a process that could take 15 years.