Despite heavy rain, the build-up to Cereals 2008 is on track and the event will be open to the public as planned on Wednesday 11th and Thursday 12th June.

Ninety-six millimetres of rain have fallen in the past seven days at the site at Leadenham, Lincolnshire, according to host Andrew Ward.

“We had to close the whole site because of the weather,” he said. 

Significant damage to service roads had been caused by marquee contractors.

“We’ve spent the whole year getting the site looking lovely. The service roads looked like a ploughed field.”

But he explained that remedial work had overcome most of the problems.

“We took decision to drag every service road up. Yesterday was a lovely drying day so we re-dragged to let the roadways dry. We’ve then culti-pressed and flat rolled.

“The whole site is now open. On the service roads we dragged up and rolled down, we’ve now got ‘artics’ driving on them fine.”

Pedestrian walkways have not been affected nor crop plots, Mr Ward confirmed.

“The site is looking superb and we would like to thank all exhibitors for their patience and understanding in working with us on site,” added Dominique Gill, managing director of the event.

And despite the problems Mr Ward remained confident about being ready next week. 

“We’re behind but it gets light at four in the morning! If we start at four and finish at nine at night we’ll be ready. The forecast is for four millimetres of rain by midnight tonight but they’re talking about the weekend being hot and dry.”