Canvey Island barriers spanning Benfleet Creek to the north and East Haven Creek in the west. The drainage system consists of sewers, culverts, natural and artificial dykes and lakes which feed seven pumping stations and gravity sluices that discharge the water into the Thames and creeks. Four of the discharge sites are "high flow" stations capable of discharging 600 litres of water per second at any tide level. The levels within the system are managed by a further five "low flow" pumping stations. The Environment Agency's Thames Estuary 2100 flood defence plan includes Canvey Island as one site for alleviating the flood
Sittingbourne and Sheppey (UK Parliament constituency) Sheppey Central, Teynham and Lynsted, West Downs, and Woodstock. The constituency was created in 1997, mostly from the former seat of Faversham. It covers some of the district of Swale, including Sittingbourne and the Isle of Sheppey. (On Sheppey is Queenborough which was a borough constituency until abolition as a rotten borough in 1832.) The constituency has been a bellwether of the national result since its 1997 creation. Unemployment claimant levels in November 2012 were close to the national average (3.8%) at 4.5%, in line with Cleethorpes, Thurrock, Hammersmith and Meriden. Sittingbourne and Sheppey (UK Parliament constituency) Sittingbourne and Sheppey