By Josh Anthony
Our recent RRC site visit to the award-winning Howgill Beck showed just how quick and effective river restoration can be. It was an excellent opportunity to witness approaches to restoration along the steep and narrow sections of a valley as well as works on the wider valley floor of an ambitious RSPB project.
As we walked upstream along the valley edge abutting the beck it was instructive to see the difference between the sections of restoration and the stretches previously straightened and dredged. Where a plain cobble bed had dominated there were now active gravel bars around which was diversity on display: standing water, pools and fast flowing water. The channel rewidening works completed in 2024 were clearly already paying dividends as the narrow valley from which the beck flows provides a high energy potential that can rapidly do geomorphic work.
Further upstream we were shown examples of channel bifurcation where some careful boulder placement was used to divert flow into areas where the channel was permitted to carve out its own path among the trees and grasses. The distinction was immediately noticeable as the two streams flowed alongside one another with the new channel at a shallower gradient, wider, and integrated with the results of a recently rewetted floodplain from moorland drain blocking. It was inspiring to walk through the water and directly observe the renaturalisation and to have to tread carefully due to the diversity of rock sizes and water depths beneath our feet.
Downstream, the valley opens out into a wide and flat expanse of grassland on Stagsike Meadow. It is prime for restoration. Here we walked along the new meanders of a river that had previously been more or less reduced to a drainage ditch, pointed arrow-straight towards the tarn. Now its sinuous course is patterned with a sequence of riffles and pools whose form have sustained since their reintroduction in 2022, likely due to the lower energy conditions - in contrast with the flashy upstream reaches. The low floodplain showed promise of becoming a great example of anastomosis as we walked between the two channels of the multi-channel system already in place at the most downstream end.
On the opposite bank, we were observed closely by cattle grazing in the areas of the RSPB site still tenanted, which reminded us of the interplay of interests at the core of this project. This careful balance of priorities can sometimes place limitations on what we want to achieve. For example, Jen Selvidge tells us that the RSPB’s responsibility to its incredible host of birdlife means that tree planting is not permitted along much of the river due to its attraction to corvids. As much as it is always exciting to hear of the successes, it was invaluable to hear about the challenges of such an ambitious project too.
I am most grateful to Jen Selvidge and her team at RSPB, George Heritage of Dynamic Rivers, and Tom Lindsay of TMLindsay for sharing with us this incredible river restoration story.