News

South Cumbria Rivers Trust are currently working up a proposal to remove Bowston weir, near Burneside in South Cumbria. Discussions are still underway but in the meantime we encourage you to check the Bowston Question & Answer Document. We have conducted a number of investigations into the removal proposal and a full design report can be found here. A flood risk assessment has also been carried out which can be viewed here: flood risk assessment. If you have any additional questions or…

Matt Carroll, our project officer has been working on Spannel Beck, to the South of Cartmel Fell. Spannel Beck is a tributary of the River Winster in South Cumbria. The project incorporated watercourse fencing, formalised hard standing crossing points and alternative livestock drinking solutions, that will improve over 800 metres of aquatic habitat. The beck suffered from excessive livestock poaching and sedimentation. Fencing has meant that the livestock will be excluded from the watercourse and will no longer be able…

Matt Carroll, our project delivery officer, has been working on a getting a 55 metre section of river in the Rusland Pool area, de-culverted over the last few months. A culvert is a buried structure that allows water to flow under a road, field, trail etc from one side to another without obstruction. The site forms part of a wetland area and by de-culverting the site, the natural stream habitat can now be restored; quickly benefiting fish, invertebrates and other…

In 2017, the SCRT team took on a ‘green’ engineering bank protection project on the River Mint. This meant driving and fixing large tree stumps with attached root plates, known as ‘root wads’ into the river bank. This technique is used as the protruding root plates act as a means of dissipating the rivers energy, therefore reducing the erosive power of the river. We have just completed this project by planting trees between the fencing and bank protection. Introducing a riparian…

We have just finished installing 10 Large-Woody debris structures (LWDs) at a small beck near Windermere. The LWDs are a great example of Natural Flood Management (NFM); techniques that are used to alleviate flooding  using natural features and processes. Other great examples, include: creating wetlands, bank restoration, managing land and soil, creating woodland and so on. LWDs are used, as they mimic the woody debris that form naturally when trees and debris fall into a watercourse. They cause water flowing…

November 2018- SCRT started delivery work on a de-culverting project at Crosthwaite, Cumbria that had been worked up for several months. Funding for the project came from rod licence revenue as well as from crowdfunding, as part of the Dutch WWF dam removal campaign. South Cumbria Rivers Trust are the first to get crowdfunding for a barrier removal. The project was in two stages, working with two separate landowners to remove a significant proportion of the once current culvert. The…

BACK TO BASICS WITH BECKS TO BAY There are many different projects and partnerships that SCRT staff are working and involved in, at any one time. Becks to Bay, a group of local organisations, work together as a partnership under the national Catchment Based Approach initiative. It is something that SCRT have been a proud member of for 4 years but many people don’t know what it is or why it is so important. We want to change that. The…

Our 2018 Riverfly report is now available for you to read on our website. You can find the old reports as well as the new riverfly report here. South Cumbria Rivers Trust (SCRT) supported by a wide volunteer network, annually undertake riverfly (invertebrate) surveys as a method of monitoring water quality. The riverfly monitoring initiative is important to monitor the health of a local beck; thereby establishing a population baseline and highlighting any subsequent deterioration in water quality. It is also…

Our Conserving Coniston and Crake team has been very busy this year fulfilling the requirements of their HLF project. They have put together some of their best bits, which can be found here: http://ccc.scrt.co.uk/news/2018-a-year-in-review We will be updating our website in the New Year, so keep an eye out for upcoming events and our annual report. For now, we thank you for your continued support and wish you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

The £1.5million BIFFA funded Fresh Water Pearl Mussel project has come to completion after it began back in 2015. The project, that set out to PROTECT, SECURE and RESTORE Freshwater Pearl Mussels across England, consisted of five partner organisations, including South Cumbria Rivers Trust to work at reversing the decline of this critically endangered species across the country. Freshwater Pearl mussels rely on pristine water conditions, with a high oxygen content with numbers acting as a river health indicator. Elevated…