Skip to main content

A home on the Cray....and a plan for nature

This from Ashe Hurst – River Keeper on the River Cray with Thames21:
Good News, We got planning agreed tonight from Bexley Council. The River Keeper base on Foot Path 106, Barnes Cray Road Crayford DA1, will provide a focal point for River Keeper Volunteers and volunteers, storage for tools, kit, boats, canoes and enhancement materials. We will be able to hold meetings, carry out training & repairs.
At present the land is derelict and over grown. The shipping container, porta cabin & WC are being provided by Bexley Engineers Department as a mitigation from the A206 Thames Road & Bridge building project.
Although not yet envisaged as an main office as such, I will need suitable power to operate a PC, Printer, Lights, Heating, hot & Cold Water, Sink , Fridge, Microwave, Kettle.
We need to be on site by end of February or the funding from the mitigations will be withdrawn by March.
We Started Footpath 106 enhancements projects today, within 15 mins were down to T- Shirts. Thames21 River Keeper Volunteers, Northwest Kent Country Partnership volunteers and Southern EA Operations Team blitzed 100 meters and carried on for 300 meters. Bexley Contractors cleared debris and litter. Only 500 meters to go. This will open the ground up to light and moisture, regenerate fresh growth, increase Bio Diversity, remove sleeping, drinking and drug dens and give clear views along the secluded river path.
All large Trees growing in silted beds that had to be felled have been cut to lengths for use in Wild Trout Trust River Restoration Projects that RKs are working towards.
Can I thank all Thames21 RKVs, everyone for their support of our project and those of you who have supported and guided us through this Land Acquisition and planning process.
Regards.
Ashe


TINTT has been sifting the available information on the Cray’s water quality and combining this with the EA's and our own knowledge of the river structure.

Taking the raw numbers from the EA monitoring records and turning them into graphical plots allows us to visually pick out spikes in chemical levels and get a feel for the frequency of accidental inputs of chemicals to the river.

This has enabled TINTT to work alongside the EA and forward a strategic plan for appropriate habitat restoration and biodiversity management. In this way, we can maximize the potential ecological benefits for the efforts that will be put into habitat work on the Cray. We will also be providing (free of charge) a Wild Trout Trust “Practical Visit” to carry out top quality habitat restoration on substantial demonstration plots. The crucial value of the PV programme (as well as the direct habitat and overall biodiversity benefits that it generates) is that Thames21 and all associated volunteers working on the Cray can be trained in each of these techniques. In turn, this state of the art expertise can be passed on to future volunteers and the WTT are always available to respond to technical queries that arise from any of our partnership projects.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Why Presume to Remove Weirs? (with River Dove Case Study)

Weirs and the Backwards Ways that Rivers Work One of my favourite sayings on river restoration is a mangled quote from a movie "... boxing is an unnatural act. Everything in boxing is backwards: sometimes the best way to deliver a punch is to step backwards...but step back too far and you ain't fighting at all ". So my mangled version starts out "Everything in rivers is backwards...". Basically, I never seem to run out of new examples of "what SEEMS to happen in a river is actually the complete opposite of what really happens". The rest of this article looks at many of the "backwards" things about weirs and rivers - and finishes off with a real-world case-study that is playing out right now on the River Dove . One spoiler alert is that, from an ecological point of view, it is almost always safe to assume that: The best biological outcome for a river is the removal of some or all of an artificial weir.  Now, I don't exp...
3 comments
Read more

Triumphant Urban river Conclave

Along with generously contributed sponsorship from the Environment Agency, the WTT’s “Trout in the Town” project sponsored and hosted a fantastic conference over the weekend of 1st and 2nd August 2009. Participants and presenters gathered from across the UK in order to: • Share innovative approaches between practitioners • Receive and provide expert technical and practical guidance • Foster support and networking between projects • Generate and spread “Best Practice” for urban river conservation Most participants arrived on the Friday night and took advantage of the conference venue accommodation. This allowed for one or two well-earned drinks at the end of the “normal working week”. Little did they know the rigours awaiting them over the next two days. Proceedings were kicked off on Saturday morning by Stuart Crofts’ inspirational account of the battle for South Yorkshire’s River Don, fought since the 1970’s by himself and several other key figures including Chris Firth and Gerald Sto...
4 comments
Read more

Return of the Urban Conclave - even bigger and better than the original?

Friday February 25th through to Monday the 28th saw a massive payoff for over 2 years' worth of planning, design proposals, negotiation and persistance (not only on my part, but on the part of the Wandle Trust - in particular Bella Davies and Theo Pike). Members of the local E.A. fisheries team (including Tanya Houston) also pushed forward the important removal of several barriers to trout migration - which will soon see a fish pass added to a large weir to complement the lowering/removal of 3 other weirs. Finally, we had the go ahead to begin the creation of good quality spawning, juvenile and adult trout habitat patches in the upper reaches of the Carshalton arm of the River Wandle: the next step in returning truly wild self-sustaining trout populations since their demise in the polluted waters of the 1930s. Whilst seeking to arrange this year's "Trout in the Town Urban River Champion's Conclave" , the thought occurred that it would be incredibly fitting to sh...
5 comments
Read more