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Sheffield's Trout in the Town: S.P.R.I.T.E.

The 25th of April saw S.P.R.I.T.E. launched at the opening of Sheffield Environment Weeks' fair. Cheryl Gibson and myself ran the stall in Sheffield's Fargate shopping district. Just prior to that John Blewitt had marshalled the inaugural meeting of SPRITE Anglers - an angling club with no joining or membership fees. In fact - all it takes to belong to this AC is to turn up to some working parties and social events. Importantly, even though SPRITE Anglers will be looking after sections of the urban River Don and tributaries - it won't prevent anyone from fishing "on their patch". Anglers using these urban reaches will be given the opportunity to put something back into the amenity that they enjoy by helping to organise or carry out working parties (but won't be prevented from using the river if they don't want to be part of the club).

This setup, which combines an enlightened angling club membership with local wildlife and conservation enthuisiasts' interests, is proving very successful with notable examples on Lancashire's River Colne (http://colnewaterac.blogspot.com/) as well London's River Wandle (http://www.wandletrust.org/).
The first trash clean up was carried out on Saturday 2nd May, with the next planned for 13th of June.

Here is a link to the video that shows the start of the story:

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