Residents of Exford are warning that the village faces a growing flood threat from a gravel shoal beside its historic bridge, after the Environment Agency confirmed that it will carry out no works on the River Exe and its rules make it near impossible for local people to do themselves.
The gravel was last cleared around twelve years ago. Since then it has rebuilt and, residents say, grown significantly worse, with trees and saplings now rooted in the channel. The Agency's own correspondence concedes that its assessment of the flood risk depends on that vegetation being managed, and admits in the same document that vegetation has been allowed to establish unchecked since February 2023.
In a letter signed by Mark Rice, the Agency's Area Director for Devon, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, the Agency states it "will not be undertaking any works in the river at this location" and that the matter must instead be "resolved and agreed between the riparian owners", named as the White Horse Inn and the county council.
Yet the Agency's conditions make clearance all but impossible. Vegetation may only be removed by hand. No machinery may enter the river, and an excavator may not even reach into the channel from the bank, on the grounds it could harm fish spawning gravels.
Exford sits at the heart of Exmoor National Park and suffered serious damage in the floods of August 1952. The centre of the village has long been recognised as susceptible to flooding from the river.
Jeremy Hickman, Exford resident and parish councillor, said: "When the water comes it comes fast, and it comes at night. It won't be officials from the Environment Agency being evacuated at 2am. It will be our pensioners and our young families. We have warned them for ten years. This is a disaster waiting to happen, and it is entirely avoidable."
James Wright, Conservative campaigner and Exmoor farmer, said: "A dozen residents have written to me, and every one of them fears the same thing. The Environment Agency has decided from behind a desk in Exeter that there is no risk, then written rules that stop the village acting for itself. If the Agency will not do the work, it must get out of the way and let local people manage their own river."
The Environment Agency holds discretionary powers to carry out works on main rivers. It says it exercises them only where it identifies a measurable reduction in flood risk, and that an officer who visited Exford on 9 February 2026 did not consider the gravel a flood risk despite local objections.
