History shows that reinstating ditches around fields could yield benefits for all, say local people
Suffolk folk have long memories, passed down through generations. So the recollections of the late Sidney Rampling of the village of Brettenham, passed on through another local man, Alan Scrivenor, still inform the residents of nearby Lower Road, Rattlesden, about flooding. Scrivenor thought Rampling would not have let farmers use excuses about climate breakdown and heavier bursts of rain.
He believed the pub, the Brewers Arms, and other properties along the stream known as the River Rat, would have no need of sandbags to keep out the flash floods if farmers had kept up what Rampling regarded as the proper maintenance of their land.
