Plan to cut town's flood risk 'naturally'

A charity which has bought land it hopes to turn into a "wildlife haven" has announced a plan to use "natural" techniques to help cut the risk of flooding in a nearby town.

Friends of the Lake District said it had doubled the land it owns at Dam Mire Wood, near Keswick, Cumbria, at the foot of the mountain Blencathra.

The body's head Michael Hill said the new patch of land it owned was in a "poor natural state" but they hoped to improve it to encourage wildlife to flourish.

At the same time, he said, the restored land would help the group do their "little bit to save Keswick from flooding again".

The charity now owns about five hectares of land at the foot of Blencathra.

It has already planted about 1,000 trees on the original fields it has owned since 2021.

Mr Hill said: "We see badgers and all sorts of birds.

"We're seeing the wildlife come back to this restored piece of land."

He said the team wanted to take more of a "wetlands approach" with the new land as it was already very "boggy".

This includes adding ponds along with shallow depressions which can fill up with rainwater.

These waterbodies would then hopefully fill up with "all types of toads and invertebrates", he said.

The team also hopes to install "leaky dams" into a beck on the field to slow down the flow rate as water runs down Blencathra and ends up in Keswick.

"The method is all about what can you do upstream of these danger areas to reduce those big pulses of water as they race down hills," Mr Hill said.

"We can slow the flow of water down that hill and hopefully do our little bit to save Keswick from flooding again."

The charity is currently seeking donations for the project.

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