Farmers suggest landowners should be free to dredge the Aldingbourne Rife for themselves at flood meeting

Nick Adames, a landowner from Flansham, said landowners in and around the Aldingbourne Rife are willing to and capable of maintaining the stream, in a bid to reduce flood risk in Bognor Regis.

"The key to the whole issue of floods is to get the rife dug out to its original profile. And with the reeds gone, that would stop the flooding. I could do it quite handily, but it’s the red tape that gets in the way, and that’s legislation that’s been written by people who don’t know anything about the countryside, so it all just feels so impossible.”

The Environment Agency (EA) stopped dredging the rife more than twenty years ago, but calls for its reintroduction have continued ever since, getting louder as floods get more and more frequent. The organisation has historically produced a range of reasons for abandoning the practice but, in 2022, after a series of serious floods on Shripney Lane, a spokesperson told West Sussex County Councillor Keir Greenway that the cost of dredging the rife would be too high for the environmental benefits gained and that doing so might endanger local wildlife.

Landowners like Mr Adames are unconvinced by these arguments and thinks a committee of local landowners would be better placed to maintain the rife.

His associate, Emma Maclaren, explained: “What we need at this stage is quotes on how much it would cost to undertake the works, plus we need the permits that show we understand the implications of what we’re trying to do, and there will be some cost to doing that. So, we’re at a stage where we’re trying to put some figures around it, so we know how much we’re talking about, and then we can start looking for funding.

"There are lots of successful businesses in the area who have a vested interest in this – the floods have cost them money.”

The comments came at last week’s FACT meeting at Bognor Regis Golf Club. It was the third meeting of the group, which was formed late last year by David Alexander and Melinda Matthews to organise a community-led, cross-partisan response to flooding across Arun District.