The Government’s floods chief is to visit vulnerable villages in the Otter Valley as part of an inspection of defences in Devon.

The Government’s floods chief is to visit vulnerable villages in the Otter Valley as part of an inspection of defences in Devon.

During his tour the Environment Agency’s flood defence chairman James Morrish will visit flood-risk areas including Newton Poppleford to survey work to homes in the area.

The works in Newton Poppleford consisted of the construction of a new floodbank and associated drainage works at Poppleford Bridge.

It is hoped the work will help reduce the risk of flood water flowing into local properties during heavy rainfall.

In addition, a road ramp was built 1km downstream of Poppleford Bridge together with modifications to fencing to increase flow into the River Otter and to reduce flood risk to properties to the South side of Back Lane bridge.

Included in the work was tree planting, undertaken as a community event and seeding of land with wildflowers.

The work was paid for the local levy, cash raised through a contribution from regional authorities including Devon County Council for our South West and Wessex Regional Flood Defence Committees.

Mr Morris, who will also be visiting Tipton St John and Ottery St Mary , will be joined on the tour by local committee members Peter Bowden, Roger Giles and Roger Hunt.

Mr Morris said: “We are doing everything we can to help our local communities protect their families, homes and businesses. We can’t prevent flooding altogether, but we can help people to minimise the damage.”