Man Flu and trees gallore
February 22, 2011
Last week flew by, mainly because I took the Monday off (following the HLF submission) and the fact that I needed to treat my better half to a good day out, as she had been roped into helping with the HLF! Then just as I thought I would be getting back to normal… I got a classic dose of man flu!
Tuesday I was in and we had a meeting with Philip, and then headed over to Montford to check on the progress of the habitat scheme, and ground conditions for the tree planting on Saturday. Things were looking good and after a bite it was back to the office to try and get this report for our Gayle and Cam Beck project finished.
Wednesday I came in and moaned all morning about being ill, so after getting the Gayle and Cam beck project done, I went home to bed!
Thursday I was planning to stay home and recover, but got a call from George and so had to go to Montford to check progress, and then swung back past the office to sort out a trip to London for Catherine, and two of our Riverfly Partnership volunteers. The trip to London is for the Riverfly Partnership conference, and we looked at our list of volunteers and picked the two longest serving and regular contributors. This is the first opportunity we’ve had to reward volunteers for their help and support, and I hope we can continue this in years to come.
Friday myself and Tom Hartley headed to Langden to carryout the third and final fish rescue up there, where we rescued around 165 trout and salmon. After that we went to pick up materials for the Tree planting on Saturday, and then back to the office to sort out our solar powered drinking troughs.
Saturday morning myself, Stephen, Catherine and 12 others turned up at Montford to put in 700 trees, it was a great day and thanks to the incredible hard work of our team we had all the trees plus a few willow whips planted by 14:30!
The scheme will provide shading, bank stability, cover and a screen for the river from the motorway (M65) improving the habitat for all river species, and those who enjoy walking there!
My thanks to:
Vince, Dave, David, Graham, Peter, Rod , Abbie , Sam , Ben and Dennis
Last minute panic
February 17, 2011
Well last week was what I hope is the end of spending every day and most night working on funding bids – but no doubt in the future it’ll happen again, it’s in the nature of what we do.
Monday was a site visit to West Bradford and Montford to see the effects of the high water of the weekend. Philip and I then spent the best part of the day on polishing our Heritage Lottery Fund bid.
Tuesday I met Lancashire County Council on site to start the process of obtaining permission from them to build our fish pass at the Calder/Brun confluence. After a successful meeting it was back to the office for more HLF, and some preparation for this years angling passport scheme.
Wednesday we had a meeting with Ralph Assheton to look at potential storage space for some of our equipment. We found a potential site but we’re just thinking about a few things first. Then back to the office, and you know what…
Thursday it was a return to Langden for another fish rescue, and there’s not doubt that I’ll be returning at least once more especially if we keep getting plenty of rain and high river levels which will wash back into the section of river channel which is being worked in. From an ecological point of view it is a real indicator of just how important river braids, whether containing running water all year round or not, are in providing refuge. Hence the success of our off stream spawning channels. Using google earth and satellite photos you can actually visit our catchment, and look at the old river braids that have been reclaimed by man. Long Preston shows this the most, but it’s not the only place you can spot these braids have a look at Skirden.
Friday was anything but relaxing. In the morning Catherine and I were making sure that all of the supporting documents for our HLF bid were in order, then at lunch time we started submitting our bid online. Then we had a real surprise which was that we were evacuated from the office, half way through submission, due to the gas leak at Johnston Matthey! After a brief panic I scrambled home and sat my computer till well into the night making sure that we got everything submitted – and we did! So now it is fingers crossed and wait and see, this really does present a wonderful opportunity for the rivers and people in Burnley and I only hope that within the application I got that across!
Keeping the momentum going
February 8, 2011
I always feel that February is a tough time, it’s not the new year anymore, that extra enthusiasm has gone, it still feels like winter, and according to 30 years of Rain records that our trust chairman provided to me, it’s consistently the wettest month of the year – yet we must keep pushing to make sure we get things done to the standard people have come to expect. Going back to it being the wettest month of the year… it certainly felt wet over the weekend, I was caught staring out the window a couple of times wondering; how our redds were fairing and how our projects from last year were fairing.
But back to last week. Monday I was joined by Andy Heath from Trent Rivers trust who had promised me a day for some advisory work I had done, and I needed the help as we were doing a fish rescue on Langden Brook. The thing that I remember the most was that it was cold! We were moving fish from a section of the brook that was to be affected by road protection work. Over 200 trout and salmon fry were moved including a cock salmon of 4lb and a small sea trout. It was an education doing this work, one thing that amazed all involved, was a small off line pool, 2 metres by 1 metre in size and 6 cm deep. It had not been connected to running water for over 10 days, yet we took 15 fry and 2 parr out of it, that when you stood and looked, you could not see.
Tuesday I worked on our feasability study for fish passage on the Brun and Don, including meeting the Chairman of the Friends of Thompson Park on site to discuss our projects on the Brun in Thompson park. It always amazes me just what work goes on, that you never hear about. And it is a pleasure to meet people who do this kind of work, and make me feel guilty publicising our work when they do an awful lot with no recognition.
Wednesday and part of Thursday I began putting the final polishing touches onto the Heritage lottery fund application. But Thursday I also put some hours in on our Gayle and Cam beck study, looking at sub catchment size and the channel widths. Including nipping to 2 local streams to get channel width measurements, the highlight of the day was the massive electric shock I got off an electric fence, bigger than most fences as it was a permanent fence and I dread to think where the power came from (possibly the mains!!) at least I know my hearts OK! We got some really interesting results, much of which were expected, and I hope to publish the report very soon.
Friday I worked on our fish pass feasability study in the Brun / Calder area, and made some real progress with permissions and potential designs. We’re on a tight schedule for this one, September completion with; topographical survey, fish pass design and consent, planning permission, land drainage consent, tender process, building the thing and signing all off to do in the mean time… I really do need to keep the momentum going!
p.s. we have a volunteer tree planting day on the 19th of February so if you can make it, please get in touch!
Working together…
February 3, 2011
If it hasn’t come out in my last few posts, bidding for funding has taken over my life, both at work and at home. Thankfuly my other half is patient and doesn’t mind me squirreling away to the spare room at home to work on my laptop. However last week I was afforded a little bit of a break from non stop office work.
On Monday we had our usual meeting with Philip, I worked on our HLF bid briefly and then prepared my presentation for the Association of Rivers Trusts workshop the following day. The aim of the project was to talk about the work we did last year with the funding ARTs had provided, but specifically to share tips on how we completed our projects.
Tuesday was fantastic, I always enjoy meeting up with friends and colleagues (some new – some old) from other rivers trusts. The rivers trusts workshops are a gathering of like minded people, whose passion is rivers and conserving them. With such shared passion everyone gets on and I find these get togethers real boosts to morale and enthusiasm. Our presentation went off without a hitch, and with over 40 people present all from rivers trusts in the North alone, we were able to share a lot of our tips, but also picked up an awful lot!
Wednesday I met with Lauren Brown a reporter from the Nelson Leader at Barrowford to do an interview about our fish pass next to the heritage centre. We are trying to keep the profile of the fish pass high as we are trying to fund raise for a fish counter (of the underwater video kind) - please feel free to use the donate now link on the right. We’ll need approximately £5,000 for all the kit, but we hope that we will be able to put a display unit up in a suitable local location to display video footage of the fish using the fish pass. This would be of benefit to the local residents, but I also hope visitors. There’s nothing like this anywhere in Lancashire, if not the North of England.
In the afternoon I went to meet Tracy, one of the Burnley Borough Council park rangers, to discuss with her our plans for the Urban River Enhancement Scheme (URES). I can’t tell you how glad I was to have made that link, Tracy (and all the rangers) are a gold mine of information, and their links to the local communities will be essential to our project.
Thursday was back to the usual… funding bids… all day.
Friday we met with the North area manager of United Utilities to discuss possible ways of working together. This was everything from reporting on their good work, to helping them correct their problem areas (such as stormwater overflows). We’ll watch this space and hope that something comes of it. Then in the afternoon it was back to you know what.
On Sunday I sat down with my Dad (an Architect) to come up with some initial design sketches and artist impressions of the works that we want to do as part of the URES project. The poor man had driven 5 hours up from Wales on Friday and had to drive 5 hours back on Sunday, and I made him work! But at least the pictures look great and should help to make it clear to all involved what we hope to do in Burnley.
The last week really did show the potential benefits of working together, not just with other organisations, but individuals and family! This is the river’s trust way, and has been since the begining, it is long running and shining example of “Big Society” in action.
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