Packing in a varied week
May 5, 2010
It was a long week last week, well at least it felt that way! Having been down south for a week, I was eager on Sunday to see what progress was made at Padiham, so after lunch I headed over to Padiham. I was thoroughly pleased to see that nearly all work to the weir had been completed! The three downstream bed check weirs were in place (with some minor works to be done), the rocks in between to form rock ramps were in place, and the height of the weir had been reduced to complete the final major stage of work! Fish are now able to migrate through Padiham weir and up to Pendle Water! I will get some photos on the project page of the website soon. So happy was I that I decided to get a couple of hours fishing in.
Monday Was back to normal, Philip was away so I got stuck into catching up on the correspondence from the previous week. It wasn’t to bad though as the joys (or horrors) of modern technology meant I was able to do much of the emailing required via phone while I was away. Once that was sorted I had to design an interpretation panel for one of our habitat schemes, then more paperwork for Barrowford 3 fish pass, but to round off the day Stephen and I went and walked over Stock beck were we are planning some substrate addition to try and aid spawning and the recovery of this surprisingly important beck.
Tuesday first thing we went out with the EA to do a White Claw crayfish survey at a project site. This was to make sure that if present we carried out a rescue before works commenced. However, sadly none were present. In the afternoon a meeting to discuss the way forward with easing fish passage on the Hodder flow gauging weir. It was a good meeting and we now feel there is a way ahead.
Wednesday I went into Ribble Valley Borough Council to meet with the planning department to find out more about the planning process where rivers and streams are likely to be impacted. This was a really good session and I hope that positive things will come to pass. The afternoon was more Barrowford 3 paperwork! Plus a visit to Mearley Brook to put up the last signs for the passport scheme.
Thursday I met David Jackson up on Colne water to walk the bottom section of the beck and look at the pollution concerns David had. Unfortunately he was spot on and we found several problems, which the EA are now tackling. In the afternoon was more paper work for Barrowford 3, and that continued into Friday. Why so much paperwork? Well we need:
- Permission from the owners
- Planning permission
- Land Drainage consent
- Fish pass group approval
- Preparation of Tender documents
So you can see that each of these are fairly well involved!
Friday We got the last of the Passport Scheme boxes up, but unfortunately the vouchers and booklets didn’t come in time for the opening of our season. I was really gutted especially when we had several enquiries about this over the weekend, but I now have the vouchers and will soon get the booklets so soon people can start to explore some of these wonderful small wild trout streams.
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