The soggier the better: Clayhidon field helps keep Exeter drier

Contractors have been at work in Clayhidon turning a four-acre field into a quagmire.  Instead of improving the drainage they are ruining it, digging up the old pipes and trying to make sure it floods when it rains.

There is method in this apparent madness, say Alison and Gareth Weekes, who have volunteered to allow their field to be used in a project aimed at saving towns and villages as far downstream as Exeter from flooding.

Connecting the Culm, managed by the Blackdown Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, is part of a programme to make rivers in France, Belgium, the Netherlands and the UK more resilient to the impacts of climate change.

Under the guidance of the Westcountry Rivers Trust, diggers have scraped away part of the river bank at Deadbeer to allow the Culm to spill more easily into what used to be an old water meadow and then to be held up in ponds behind a 50-metre long earth dam.

Two days of heavy rain have given the scheme an early test, although it hasn’t been challenged yet with a full-scale flood.

“We are looking forward to seeing the wildlife the ponds attract,” said Alison. “Meanwhile they have already soaked up a huge amount of water. It’s very, very soggy out there. Just what we hoped for!”