South Cumbria Rivers Trust are setting up a new volunteer led Windermere Community Partnership. Following in the footsteps of the Coniston and Crake Catchment Partnership and the Duddon River Association, this will be a local partnership covering the whole Windermere catchment.
SCRT are the DEFRA appointed hosts of the South Cumbria catchment partnership, Becks to Bay. Becks to Bay is part of the national catchment based approach initiative, which ‘looks at activities and issues in the wider catchment as a whole, rather than considering different aspects separately in different locations.’ (Defra’s policy framework). It consists of local people and organisations working collectively to protect, monitor and enhance the catchments of South Cumbria. It represents, advocates and co-ordinates actions and priorities for local organisations, communities, landowners and businesses across South Cumbria.
We are also members of the Love Windermere partnership, set up to tackle the long-term problems facing Windermere. This is an evidence-based approach to maintaining and improving water quality in the lake. Members of the partnership include the Freshwater Biological Association, Lake District Foundation, National Trust and more.
This and our experience with partnership working provides us with the unique expertise to develop and support a new community partnership for the Windermere catchment.
Why is a community partnership needed?
Currently, there is no central hub for people interested in learning more about the Windermere catchment to go to. SCRT want to change that. There are some significant long-term challenges facing the catchment and the key to achieving catchment scale improvements lies in local interest, knowledge and action.
The development of the partnership will be an organic process and the direction, objectives and work programme will develop over time. SCRT have funding from Garfield Weston to develop the partnership over the first year, with the view to apply for more funding once we understand what the partnership wants to achieve. During this development year, SCRT will help facilitate this new partnership in any way it needs. This may be regular face-to-face get togethers, organising talks and volunteering opportunities to training, advocacy, partnership led schemes and long-term initiatives.
We want to hear from you about what you would want to see as part of the Windermere community partnership. Do you want to learn more about the challenges Windermere faces? Do you want to get hands on with practical delivery work? Do you want this to provide a social opportunity in your local area? Want to understand the various schemes/work/organisations and how they all fit? Do you want to be involved somehow but you don’t know yet…Let us know. Your feedback will help us develop this opportunity into an enduring and successful partnership. Please e-mail admin@scrt.co.uk
We have arranged two drop in events in March, for you to come find out what it’s all about! See our events page for details. The Windermere community partnership takes inspiration from other community partnerships in the area that we support. These are driven by passionate and committed local people who want to see good things happen in their area. Learn more here about the Coniston and Crake Catchment Partnership and Duddon Rivers Association.
There are loads of great projects happening around Windermere right now, including the water quality sampling, reedbed restoration, riverfly sampling, tree planting, land management schemes, river reconnection, septic tank emptying schemes, invasive species control and more. Enter the conversation and join in on the action.
