Land To The South East Of The Wilderness Darsham Road Westleton Suffolk
Prior Notfication (Agricultural) - A balanced cut and fill earth moving operation to create a winter storage irrigation reservoir. The reservoir will be made water proof by engineering the clay found beneath the site. No materials will be brought onto or removed from site.The project would fall within the ambit of the Reservoirs Act safety legislation.Why necessary for agriculture: Ward Farming Ltd and N J Bacon (Farms) grow vegetables including Potatoes, Onions, Spinach, Lettuce and Carrots on the east Suffolk coast. Our coastal location and sandy soils allow us to provide high quality early season vegetable crops which are key to meeting demands of our supermarket customers.It is simply not possible to produce these crops without irrigation. As the climate changes, and we see longer dryer spells this is increasingly important. These dryer spells also coincide with flashier rainfall periods and we recognise the need to abstract high flow water from rivers and drainage channels in order to store this water for application to crops during the spring and summer growing season.The proposed reservoir at Grange Farm, Westleton will allow us to store water abstracted during the winter months from the Minsmere New Cut for later use on crops on land we have recently purchased in this area.Why designed for agriculture: The reservoir is situated centrally to the command area for irrigation, facilitating distribution to an underground system if irrigation mains and hydrants in each field to be irrigated.