‘Leaky dams’ and ponds help prevent flooding naturally at West Wood in Wivelsfield

Ouse & Adur Rivers Trust has been working with the landowner and community groups to put natural flood management interventions in place at West Wood.

Rachel Paget, senior project officer at Ouse & Adur Rivers Trust, recently took Lewes District councillor Matthew Bird, Cabinet Member for Sustainability, on a tour of the area.

She told him about the building of 'leaky dams' at key locations and spoke about plans for later this year, which involve a planting programme and creating of a series of ponds to hold water and slow the flow from the woodlands.

Councillor Bird said: “We are so grateful to the woodland owner for his support of this initiative and to the Ouse & Adur Rivers Trust and to all the community volunteers who have worked so hard to install the leaky dams in the woods. This work will be hugely beneficial to the many properties nearby, which include a number of council-owned homes. This is a brilliant natural flood management initiative to get involved with and I encourage anyone in the Wivelsfield area or beyond to get in touch with the Ouse & Adur Rivers Trust if they have ideas about what else the project could be doing or to play an active role themselves.”

The work at West Wood is part of a wider partnership between Lewes District Council, the Ouse & Adur Rivers Trust, Sussex Flow Initiative, landowners and others to promote natural flood management.