Volunteers clean stadium after repeated flooding

Sue Holden said the club needed "a lot of love and care"

An army of volunteers have helped clean up Worcestershire's New Road cricket ground ahead of the new season following repeated flooding.

The venue fell victim to eight floods over the winter with no cricket played since.

In April, the club's chief executive Ashley Giles said that "maybe the timing is right" for the Pears to leave their iconic home, which sits alongside the River Severn.

Volunteer Sue Holden told BBC Midlands Today: "They just need some help, it is a massive task - it is a mucky river and I just think the club needs a lot of love and care at the moment."

Fellow volunteer Ian Barker added: "I think this winter has probably been as bad as we have had for the recurrence of floods.

"At times it is soul destroying but at the same time I think there is a wish to get the cricket back up and running."

An estimated 50 people attended the clean up on Wednesday with ground staff.

About 50 people volunteered to clean down the seats at New Road following the winter's recurring floods

Speaking at the event, Mr Giles said the financial impact of the flooding in 2024 had been "huge".

• Listen BBC Sounds to find out the toll recurring flooding has had on Worcester's New Road

"We are looking at a loss in the region of £200,000 to £250,000, for a club of our size that is a lot of money.

"That comes from lost revenues from not having people here but also the cost of having to pick everything up and move it to Kidderminster, which is where we played our first two home games."

Why does New Road flood so often?

"If you look at New Road from the air," says David Gregory-Kumar, BBC Midlands Today's science, environment and rural affairs correspondent, "you will see it is part of a stretch of land to the west of the River Severn in the centre of Worcester that actually has little development on it.

"It is a nice stretch of green and, of course, the reason for this is its lower than much of the city to the east of the river, and so more likely to disappear underwater anytime the Severn floods.

"For Worcestershire County Cricket's history, the number of floods and their duration have been an inconvenience - but a price worth playing for a cricket ground with a storied history and a pretty beautiful view of the cathedral."

But climate change is changing things.

"As we move to wetter winters with more, heavier rain events we see not just more flooding but longer lasting floods too.

"Looking back at ten years of River Severn levels the changing pattern is pretty stark.

"The choice being faced today by Worcestershire County Cricket about whether or not New Road has a future is a choice plenty of others will be facing over the next few years as our climate and weather patterns continue to change."