News

Pete Evoy, our Trust Director, has finally decided to hang up his wellies and retire from SCRT! Pete has worked for the Trust since 2010, where there were once only two members of staff employed by the Trust. Since then, he has been instrumental in helping shape and develop the charity, now employing eight members of staff. Some of Pete’s contributions to the Trust include; lead officer for Bowston weir removal, Windermere Restore the Shore, Love Windermere Board member and…

We have an exciting opportunity to join South Cumbria Rivers Trust, to work within the iconic landscapes of the southern Lake District UNESCO World Heritage site. We are seeking a motivated, experienced Trust Manager to join our team and drive forward business development. This role is crucial in driving forward our initiatives, leading staff and helping to shape SCRT’s future as we explore new horizons. Please see our Vacancies page for further information or click the link below. Vacancies

Not one but two culverts in the South Cumbria have been removed over the last couple of months. A culvert is defined as an enclosed artificial channel or pipe that is used to continue a watercourse under ground or a structure. Culverts can have a number of negative impacts on the environment, including loss of habitat and environmental features. Culverts impede or block movement of fish and other aquatic species, as they fragment river habitat and disrupt natural processes. Here…

We’re thrilled that The Sir John Fisher Foundation have continued to support SCRT’s Wild About Rivers education project. We have received a grant for £2575 to continue this exciting work. What is Wild About Rivers? Wild About Rivers is an education programme, run by SCRT, with funding helping to target schools in the Barrow and Furness area. It supports classroom visits and river-based visits so that children can learn more about river habitats and wildlife. It also provide a vital…

Electrofishing season is well under way with SCRT carrying out lots of surveys across our five main catchment areas so far. In total this year, we have carried out 15 surveys, with more to come! If you don’t know what Electrofishing is, it’s a survey technique used to assess the health, density and species of fish populations in our becks and rivers. Data collected every year, helps us to identify watercourses in need of restoration and helps us collect data…

The latest Duddon River Association Newsletter is now available, with all the happenings in the Duddon Valley! Invasive Species Control, Upper Duddon Landscape Recovery project updates, peatlands, events…what more could you want. Read all about it here: Duddon River Association Newsletter_Issue 3 Want to know more about the Duddon River Association, follow their socials or read how they link with SCRT here: https://scrt.co.uk/our-area/

Last month, the Love Windermere Non-Mains Drainage Group came together to map private sewage systems around Lake Windermere. Private sewage systems include septic tanks, package treatment plants and cesspits. Recent source apportionment data shows these sources contribute to around 20% of the total phosphorus in Lake Windermere. We are now working on an approach to target these areas and assess the outputs before we roll this out across the rest of our catchment areas.  South Cumbria Rivers Trust lead the…

The Lower Duddon catchment has secured funding for environmental work, through a new partnership of South Cumbria Rivers Trust, Sustainable Duddon, Duddon River Association and the South Lakes Red Squirrel Group. The partnership has received £24,000 from Cumberland Council as part of the UK Shared Prosperity Fund & Rural England Prosperity Fund. The partnership aims to develop a baseline measurement in order to establish ‘SMART’ objectives for subsequent interventions. Interventions will be aimed at improving biodiversity, resilience and improving the…

This year we developed a bid through the Big Give Green Match Fund for our Wild Lakes: Reed Revival Project around Lake Windermere. Running from 18th – 25th April, the Green Match Fund doubled all donations received. This is done through pledged support from Champions, who support global projects of their choosing. We needed to reach a target of £80,000 for the project – which we didn’t quite reach but the public and businesses who pledged support helped us raise…

Our 2023 Electrofishing report is now available! Our project officers have been working hard pulling all the information together from the electrofishing surveys completed during summer 2023. The report offers you an insight into what fish species we found in local watercourses. We had fantastic volunteers who join us for these sessions, learning all about local rivers and the species they support. Electrofishing is a monitoring technique we use to assess the abundance and health of fish in our local…