An Oxfordshire company is helping organisations and businesses dry out after heavy flooding in the Lewes and Uckfield areas.

Harwell Drying and Restoration Services, which freeze-vacuum dries documents and books after fires and flooding, has been inundated with calls for help.

The business, which began in 1979 as an off-shoot of Harwell Laboratory, has grown to become the UK leader in its field.

After the River Ouse burst its banks, the managing director, Ken McKenzie, became heavily involved with the clean-up and salvage operation in Sussex .

Two long-standing customers East Sussex Record Office and the University of Sussex were badly affected.

At one stage, the record office was under nine feet of water, and van-loads of documents were transported to Harwell to be painstakingly dried out in special vacuum chambers.

Mr McKenzie said: "This is by far the largest project we have ever been involved with.

"Logistically the damage caused by the floods in East Sussex will prove our most challenging to date."

While environmentalists predict that flooding partly caused by global warming will be more frequent, Alan Heasman, of the Meteorological Office at Bracknell, Berkshire, said the annual rainfall in the UK had not increased significantly in the past ten years.