Trout in the Town:

I've just spent two days being given the first hand low down/backstage tour of around 8km of urban chalkstream. As a result I thought I'd post photos and a very superficial account of Thames21 Head River Keeper Ashe Hurst's patch. Ashe and his team of volunteers have a continuous rolling clear up and maintenance programme that have taken his river from ASBO to pillar of the community over the six years of work since 2002. Ashe knows everyone on his patch, is a qualified angling coach and manages volunteer river keepers in regular education as well as youngsters on probation. Ashe enforces maintenance of unmowed buffer strips next to the river, an ongoing programme to eliminate invasive vegetation, installation (at strategic spots) and regular stripping of litter booms as well as established refuse collection points/skip hire. The result is that sections of river previously qualifying for "wet landfill" status are now diverse wildlife corridors. I'm sure Ashe w...

Trout in the Town will be visiting the following places over a two-week stint to find out how and where we can be most effective in delivering urban restoration in local communities: River Ise (Kettering) River Glazert (Glasgow) River Cray (London) Driffield Beck (Driffield centre) River Erewash (Nottinghamshire) In addition, support and visits will be made to existing projects on The Wandle, Colne and Goyt. Watch this space for developments and updates and email me with news of your own local projects on pgaskell@wildtrout.org

Just to catch up with a quick report on the CLA Gamefair. Trout in the Town featured prominently on the WTT stand - with its artificial stream including an urbanised section for the first time. Features such as cobbled stream bed and concrete slab side walls were augmented with a couple of "fly tipped" black bin bags, an old pallet and a couple of bottles to represent typical problems faced by urban watercourses. This feature was a surprisingly effective draw (either to people who immediately "got" it - or, perversely, also for people who started to complain that the bottom end of our display looked a state......cue WTT "yes we think its unacceptable too: step this way and hear about our urban restoration project"). Entirely unexpectedly, it also turned into a spontaneous sociological experiment. Throughout the weekend the "fake" rubbish was supplemented by an increasing amount of litter deposited by the general public. A perfect illustration of ...