The RGCG received in March 2006 a grant of £1,500 from the Wild Trout Trust’s Cinderella Chalk Rivers Project (this project is a national initiative, and aims to promote improvements to the less well known chalk rivers in England). We planned to use this grant to obtain the services of a consultant to “work up” our concept proposals in the detail of what would be done, and how it should be done, to comply with the licence consent required from the Environment Agency.

 

In May we heard that the Biodiversity team of the Anglian Region of the Agency was prepared to fund the proposed works to the tune of £7,000, plus a further £1,500 to carry out a Demonstration Day on behalf of the Cinderella Chalk Rivers Project. The money was for this financial year only. We were on a very tight time schedule from the start, as will be seen below, but the RGCG very much welcomed the opportunity to take the project forward.

 

Within the RGCG we had discussed and refined the concepts for what we wanted to do over many months previously, but we were very much aware the implementation is as important as the ideas in making a successful project.

 

First was the need to obtain a licence of consent to carry out the works from the Environment Agency engineering development control. In our case this was for a complex and interacting series of measures. The Agency considerations are, as they must be, thorough and detailed and involve a number of staff in various disciplines. The time it would take to prepare the necessary documentation and hopefully receive approval was going to be absolutely crucial to the timing of the programme.

 

We were fortunate in having Vaughan Lewis, a nationally respected consultant, to see us through this process. He visited the site for an initial familiarisation. Also for the pre-application site visit, when RGCG members discussed our proposals with the Agency, who fielded the Norfolk Development Control Engineer, and colleagues in flood protection and conservation.

 

This visit took place on the 13th July 2006, and was invaluable in helping an interactive discussion on the general principles and approaches to be taken. Following this the extensive documentation was prepared and submitted to the Agency by the end of July. The Agency worked to see approval by mid-September. This involved, under the rather special circumstances, giving a high priority to the application. No work affecting the river could take place before the approval of the licence.

 

In progressing the actual work we faced a variety of constraints and some logistical considerations; plus working within the money available. The natural constraints include conservation issues. We had to ensure that in doing what we planned we would not have an inadvertent adverse impact on wildlife.  In particular this included a very detailed survey of water vole sites, and looking for the presence of the otter. This was carried out by committee member Steve Henson of the Norfolk Wildlife Trust (NWT) in June, and the report formed part of the licence application. In addition another member carried out a survey of vascular plants on the spoil bank to be removed, to make sure that there were no significant plants that might have to be moved.

 

One important reason to complete the bulk of the work quickly was that water voles tend to hold to their burrows from November for the winter, and trout start to spawn. But the nature of the terrain was another pressing reason to start the work by mid-September and finish by end October, certainly all the “heavy” work. The meadows are peaty, wet and soft. Heavy plant can cause “cut-up” even without vehicles getting stuck and literally becoming “bogged down”.

 

With the long time farmer we discussed how best this could be avoided, and also how to cross the side stream to get off the meadows in removing spoil from the bank of the river at the upper middle reach. The chosen route was for the heavy plant to travel close to the raised spoil banks on the east side of the river. This in turn pointed to the felling and removal of the sycamore trees as the first piece of work; to be followed next by the removal of the selected section of spoil river bank, working from the upstream part to the downstream end. We wanted the timber for large woody debris and other work, and a key aim was to reclaim gravel and stone form the spoil.

 

The offer by the flood protection wing of the Agency to take out the designated spoil bank section would clearly be a huge help to the project on time-scale and project costs. It would involve a caterpillar tracked digger, with two 2.5 tonne tracked dumpers working alongside, to take the spoil away and place in heaps along the arable field adjacent to the meadows. It was estimated that there were 700-1,000 tonnes of spoil to be removed and 5 working days or more would be required.

 

The bank removal was scheduled to take a week in the second half of September. As soon as this was done, the off-site riddling operation was to be completed for the w/c 2nd October. Vaughan Lewis was scheduled to return then to supervise and work with RGCG volunteers to carry out the implementation of much of the in-river work in a three day work spell, with another 2 days pencilled in a week later. The same volunteers would carry out some preparation work in the second half of September, namely the making of the faggot bundles and stakes. There were other important tasks to be done before then, in particular a survey and the “flagging up” of the water vole sites that we need to work around, as mentioned above. The felling and trimming of six sycamore trees, not a part of the licence application, took place in August. In early September we posted notices around the site to inform the public that the work was about to take place, which enabled local people to ask for more information. Our September Newsletter set out the work aims and plan for members and others.

 

The main programme of works was planned for completion by the end of October, but we realised that will not be the end of the story. We would need to follow through by monitoring to see how the measures bed down, and observe the broad changes in the river and wildlife over time. The whole project would be a steep learning curve experience for the RGCG, which we felt would undoubtedly benefit future projects that we expect to undertake.

FUNDING AND PREPARATION