Beaver families to dam up flood risk

Two more beaver enclosures are to be built near Jamie Oliver’s home to help reduce the risk of flooding in the area.

The TV chef bought an Elizabethan manor house in Finchingfield, Essex, in 2019, and a pair of Eurasian beavers were brought into the nearby Spains Hall Estate in the same year. In 2020, they had two babies, known as kits.

The two enclosures will cover an area of 100 acres, or 10 times the size of the original enclosure, and are to be built at Finchingfield Brook before the introduction of two new families of beavers early next year. The project is funded by an environmental partnership at a cost of £350,000.

The beavers help reduce flood risk by building dams, which slow down the river flow and send it through new channels. Matt Butcher, Environment Agency lead, said: “The beavers have shown what effective flood engineers they are in the past few years and it’ll be great to extend this to a wider area.”*