Wiltshire businesses hit by continued heavy showers

Campsite manager Coleen Simpson said her first major weekend of 2024 had been hit by the persistent rains

Wiltshire businesses say the persistent rain is having a major impact on their livelihoods.

Met Office figures show the county had almost double the amount of rainfall over the last month than normal.

The manager of a campsite in Calne told the BBC that the rain meant their normally busy Easter weekend was "shocking".

And a market gardener in Bromham said they cannot plant, or harvest what is already in the ground.

The latest Met Office data comes after March was declared the hottest ever recorded globally, and was the 10th month in a row that a new air temperature record has been set.

'Really challenging'

Coleen Simpson, manager at Blacklands campsite in Calne, told BBC Radio Wiltshire: "It has been shocking for our first major weekend on the back of all that rain.

"Our pitches are absolutely saturated. We are trying to assess where is best and where is not, and where is completely closed off. It has been really challenging.

"But the ground has been a challenge. Some people embrace it but others are putting their breaks off further in the year."

• Why is it raining so much?

Phil Collins, market gardener in Bromham, said he "cannot do anything".

"You have to be so careful that you do not destroy the structure of the soil with it being so wet. It is very difficult," he said.

"I have never known it being as wet as this in the village. The ground in Bromham is sound, it is fairly free-draining [but] it has just got so wet, we cannot do anything.

"You cannot work with the weather."

Tilshead resident Victoria Burbidge said she was flooded

Vicky Burbidge, who lives in Tilshead, saw her house flooded two weeks ago and the village cut off.

She said the water "came through the playroom and sitting room".

"It was about a foot of water across a six-metre road, for almost a mile through the village," she said.

"It basically came through the seals of our doors and under the end wall of the house, where most of the water met.

"This time it is [flood] water that has got lots of topsoil in as well."