[beesrus]

Well, I've learnt something today. Thanks for posting it HG.
I've always sort of slowly migrated my raspberries and strawberries naturally up and down the plot over the seasons as they spread, so inadvertently I've done the right thing. Seems to be mostly fruit for some reason.

[TheWhiteRabbit]

It sounds very much like the bed I had problems with. The soil looked ok but was definitely very boggy this year and any rasps in it just died. The bed next to it is fine presumably because it has established fruit bushes in it which help to 'use' the excess water.

I'd suggest adding a pile of sharp sand and a load of multi purpose compost which should help dry things up and make the soil more friable and less water retentive.

Raspberries are quite shallow rooted so I wouldn't worry about going super deep, just a spade deep should do but then if it's a solid clay pan underneath you might need to go deeper.

I think you're probably just unlucky like me in that you planted during a particularly wet spell and the soil conditions just weren't conducive to growth.

[Grubbypaws]

However hard I tried to improve the drainage of my clay soil with compost and sand and a lot of hard work my raspberries always failed. They thrived initially but with solid clay underneath I think that its just time before a wet enough spell comes along and the water level rises high enough to damage them. I will not be trying to plant them again into the soil.

It is my birthday tomorrow and I asked oh to build me a raised bed 12 foot by 2 foot . I am not going to plant raspberries initially as I think the struggling and dying canes became diseased as they weakened. I will start with  gooseberry and redcurrent cordons at one end at one end and put some raspberries in the following year 

[Nobbie]

I'm hoping that the 30cm difference between the path and the raised beds means that the paths might flood, but the raspberries in the raised beds should be fine, especially as their shallow rooted - time will tell.