29
Over 30 mm of rain fell on 24th November
and again on 26th November. The first
flood occurred on 27th November. Other
floods occurred during the winter after
heavy falls. To alleviate the problem,
after the first flood, water was diverted
via a specially dug trench and a pipe.
During that winter, over 100 tons of silt
was removed from the trench, plus an un-
measurered amount that had choked the
gardens, houses, drains and roads, giving
some idea of the scale of erosion that was
occurring.
Previously, floods were virtually unknown
here. The fields had, until recently,
been grass-covered, as sheep pasture.
Although the light soils of the South
Downs are classified by the Soil Survey of
England and Wales as unsuitable for arable
cultivation, now 80% of the area is under
the plough, mainly for cereal. As tech-
nology has changed, hedges have been removed
and fields have increased in size. More
recently there has been a change to preferen-
tially growing winter wheat, a change stim-
ulated by E.E.C. subsidies, better herbicides
to cope with the winter weeds and a gross
profit margin 25% greater than for spring
sown wheat.
Obviously such flooding and soil erosion is
not acceptable. Protection to the houses
and roads could be provided by measures
such as building a dam to contain future
floods or a conduit to lead the water away.
Such solutions are likely to cost over
£100,000 to implement and would be costly
to maintain, due to silting. Another
solution would be to change the farming