This year the RRC’s Annual General Meeting was held at SEPA’s office in Edinburgh. The site visit went to Stane Gardens in the Shotts community in North Lanarkshire. The area has been heavily contaminated and altered by historical steel industries and development. The South Calder Water, which runs through the site, has been straightened and channelised, and culverted for about 350m.
At the start of July I attended a small workshop at the Izaak Walton Hotel overlooking the River Dove in Dovedale, Staffordshire.
As part of the suite of SSSI Rivers in England the Trent Rivers Trust and partners have recently completed the River Restoration Plan for the Dove SSSI. This document sets out what is currently problematic and what is needed to protect and improve this iconic but troubled limestone river.
Written by Will Barber, the RRC’s new local engagement and communications officer
On Thursday 9th of July, professionals from organisations across England, Scotland and Wales came together in Hexham, Northumberland for a workshop on Ecosystem services, facilitated by Jenny Mant from the River Restoration Centre. Participants were interested in how the ecosystem services approach could be applied, both within their work streams and the wider work of their organisations.
On the 9th of June we held our second technical training course of the year in Manchester in the impressive National Cycling Centre. The day started with coffee and biscuits before Jenny Mant (RRC) gave an introduction to fluvial processes and river restoration, with the second presentation of the day, from Judy England (Environment Agency), detailing the ecological drivers and benefits of river restoration.
Over the last two weeks, from the 21st April to the 1st of May, the Environment Agency hosted a programme of practical days, site visits, discussions and workshops in five UK river basin districts (nine catchments) across the UK.
For future applicants for the UK River Prize & Nigel Holmes Trophy, we thought we might let you in on a secret - each application is assessed and scored cross a range of criteria, including an enigmatic X Factor! This is really a challenge for the judges to identify a feature of each project which might be difficult to describe, but made the project special. There was no shortage of star qualities in the latest set of applications.
Having attended the first stakeholder group meeting with the newly formed Test and Itchen Catchment partnership, it was great to see them celebrating the first year with a 'Rivers Week' for partners. It was a good excuse to see more of the River Test too. The 'woods for water' afternoon was hosted at Timsbury Fishing with a series of talks, first by staff from the South Downs National Park, the Woodlands Trust and the Hampshire Wildlife Trust, who co-host the Catchment Partnership with the Wessex Chalk Stream and Rivers Trust.
Jenny and I are currently involved in a very exciting project evaluating both technical aspects of river restoration and the management processes of the Cumbrian River Restoration Strategy (RRS). Last week we were up in the daffodil covered Lake District to visit four of the restoration projects included on the Cumbrian RRS.
Natural Flood Risk Management Workshop, Belford 21st April 2015
(in conjunction with Arup and Newcastle University)
Guest blogger Catherine Duigan shares her thoughts on judging this year's UK River Prize
Martin and I met on the platform in Crewe, we were heading north to Penrith to meet up with the other members of the prize judging panel. Working directly on river restoration projects throughout the UK means that Martin tends to orientate himself on the basis of the location of the nearest restoration project. He did not disappoint because he drew my attention to a restored Cumbrian river from the train!