Ottery will be one of the towns to benefit from £5million of government funding to help communities affected by flooding.

The town was badly affected by severe weather in July and November last year, but the money will go towards providing it with ‘additional resilience’.

A partnership including Devon County Council (DCC) and the Environment Agency will receive almost half a million pounds towards a £730,000 package, to make sure individuals and businesses are better prepared against the risk of flooding.

A total of 24 communities across the county, including Ottery, will get funding to provide people with training on local action plans, flow monitoring of watercourses and the installation of rain-gauges to provide early warnings.

Martin Hutchings, DCC’s flood risk manager, said: “We have already been working very closely with a number of communities across the county, which has enabled us to start work on many of our own ‘quick-win’ schemes, providing measures to tackle flooding problems in a number of areas.

“The combination of these schemes and this additional funding should help make our communities more resilient against flooding in future.”