Trout in the Town:

Richard Paterson from ARM and SPRITE doing his best Phantom of the Opera impression (left) I was delighted to meet with and give a talk to the folks at ARM in Sheffield yesterday (thank you for the invite and hosting Lotte Aweimrin). Richard Paterson of ARM also happens to be doing a fantastic voluntary job of collaboratively running SPRITE (the Sheffield "Trout in The Town" affiliated chapter) with other committee members in what passes for his "spare" time too. ARM are responsible for lots of the electronic magic that happens inside your tablets, phones and other electronic devices - they are also taking an active role in providing charitable support to organisations doing good works. You can see more detail on this aspect of their business on their Corporate Responsibility pages . I wanted to thank all of the ARM staff for listening to my presentation and also the excellent questions afterwards. SPRITE will ensure that your support is put to great use o...

Here is a short video showing just the first phase (out of three phases we have completed so far) of works to re-introduce structural variety into a historically abused watercourse on the River Trent system in Staffordshire. Wild trout are slowly making a comeback on the main river and - although water quality is a constant worry - there was a huge scope to improve the chances of fish to breed in a small tributary called the Lyme Brook. With the willing support of the local council (Newcastle under Lyme Borough Council - through Becky Allen), the project was able to become a reality. It was delivered as a partnership project under the Catchment Based Approach (the local hosts for the Trent Valley Partnership are the folks at Groundwork West Midlands). The Environment Agency (as well as Staffordshire Wildlife Trust) are other key members of the partnership. For this specific work, Matt Lawrence (E.A.), Steve Cook (Groundwork) and Lynne Morgan (Groundwork) arranged funding and lo...