[Raine]

Hello again!


 


In our next installment of "How little we know about smallholding", we have a new problem.   


This time it is not the fact it is raining (though I am fed up to the back teeth with it), more the fact that the field next door to ours is flooded and constantly flowing into ours to drain.  We understood when we renting the house that one field was prone to flooding, but not that 3/4 of a acre out of an acre field would be under water!


The owner of next door's field has bought it for housing, strangely (as it's a flood plain) he has never gained planning permission (and I hope never will!).  Currently, it is about three acres of water with ducks on.  We can't see a ditch anywhere, but we haven't been in to have a look (mainly because the water to get to his gate is 2 foot deep) and covered in bind weed (he hasn't been to the field all year)


What we need is some info on what we can do about it.  Does the Environment Agency make you maintain the ditch's or is it a civil mater between the two land owner's.  Should we just try to dig a new ditch on our side of the hedge to drain away the water?


Any advice appreciated! 

[Tala Orchard]

To protect your own land you should dig a new ditch, if only to make sure your land does not get water logged in the future. 

The other thing would be to write to the other owner pointing out that water is flowing through his field and into yours and you feel that this could lead to contamination should he use pesticides or such, remind him of his bio-security responsibilities.

As you are renting the field may be a letter form the land owner may be better.

But chin up it must dry out sometime!!!

[Sylvia]

Surely,Raine, if your neighbouring field is on a flood plain and is emptying into yours then your land must be on the same flood plain and will flood in these weather conditions?

[fifixx]

This year has not been normal with flooding !  We live by a river and expect a few floods a year - but this year most of my fields are like trampolines with standing water which just can't get away.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?v=10151371150124878

[Raine]

 


From what I was led to believe by the owner, both the field next door and ours "dip" in the middle and normally flood there.  In each dip is a natural spring (which we can draw water from all year).  A beck run's at the back of the fields and a large drainage ditch just in front of the fields.  In theory, both field should drain from the center into the drainage ditch (our field has a mini ditch dug along which we kept free flowing throughout).


Our field is about a foot (ish) higher than next door's where the boundary's meet and about three foot higher overall.


The problem seemed to be that the beck had not been cleared, so was running into next door's field.  He also hadn't maintained any of his ditches, so they are all full of reeds/weeds/tree branch's and flowing slowly.


This meant that the entire field became a lake and began to raise the water level in our field.  Eventually, it was flowing over the boundary (and I think raising the water table), into our field. 


We have gone over to the area's with a public footpath and cleared everything we could (including a motorbike engine) out of the beck.  This is now only trickling into next doors field and our flooding has receded dramatically.  We have just an inch or two of water where we have about 2 foot!  It is by no means dry,  but is looking like a field rather than a lake.


Unfortunately, it looks like we are going to have to maintain the entire beck through both our field and next door's to make our field usable in this dreadful weather 


Oh, and we had to buy chest waders for hubby so he could clear the beck (at least he didn't fall over!).

[lachlanandmarcus]

Maintain it yourself altho annoying is probably the least stress option.
Also it is exceptional at the moment, we are normally very dry and have no water courses, and are on a sandy slope, but in the last week 3 springs have literally burst out of the ground and water is bubbling out of them and down the fields. Never been known in the memory of the people who used to live here and that takes it back 60 years. Just exceptional.
So if you do some hard work now I reckon in most years you wont have a problem with the field. However you might want to not do toooooo good a job of drainage if it means neighbour might get PP...:-))