Brought back to daylight after 100 years in the dark: deculverting the River Roch in Rochdale Birmingham: how can a city without major rivers still affect water quality in two river basins? Via the Grayling Society: 13,000 extra baby grayling for Chesterfield’s River Rother After that #Brexit vote, what now for our rivers? Floods Minister […]
Archive for the tag 'Rewilding'
April 29 2016
Film night: Thanks from the Wandle!
When you’ve spent a decade (or more) steadily working away at mending the headwaters of an urban river… … you end up with lots of friends to thank. So the team at the Wandle Trust (now grown up into the South East Rivers Trust) made this video to celebrate the upper Wandle project’s success at […]
April 6 2016
UK River Prize 2016: Wandle wins urban category
Here at Urbantrout, it’s no secret that the River Wandle is very close to our hearts (in fact it’s right across the road from where we’re tapping out this blog post in the depths of south London). So it’s been quite a buzz to hear that the Wandle Trust’s work on the Carshalton arm of […]
December 8 2015
Urban river futures: Deconstructing Desmond
As large swathes of Scotland and northern England start the mopping-up process after Storm Desmond ripped through the British Isles over the weekend, some frankly terrifying photos have continued to emerge, showing a whole new side to some of our best-loved urban rivers. It’s one of those clichés of environmental consciousness that we all live […]
October 1 2015
Urban river restoration: New strength in numbers for grayling in Chesterfield’s Rother
For those of us who like to make a note of future fishing prospects on our urban rivers (not to mention small but significant rewilding stories for our favourite inner city ecosystems!) here’s a good one for the diary. On 25 June this year, according to Brian Clarke in the Grayling Society’s latest newsletter… … the […]
July 15 2015
Urbantrout welcomes the launch of Rewilding Britain
This morning saw the official launch of a new national charity, Rewilding Britain, with an only slightly ambitious mission statement that includes… … mass restoration of ecosystems in Britain, on land and at sea, reversing the decline in nature so that living systems and our sense of wonder can thrive. Some might argue that the […]
April 26 2015
Urban river restoration: River Anton, Andover
Fresh from helping to deliver several projects on the middle and upper Wandle, river restoration consultancy Aquamaintain recently moved its focus to another urban chalkstream – this time the little River Anton in Andover. In the words of Test Valley Borough Council’s River Anton Enhancement Strategy, these headwaters of the globally-famous River Test have lost […]
December 1 2014
Urban river restoration: Tree kickers on the Goyt
Way back in November 2010 when we explored Stockport’s River Goyt for Trout in Dirty Places (and interviewed local river restorationist Andrew Parker and other officials of the Disley & New Mills Angling Club), one of the most fascinating angles on this river’s recovery story was the structures called tree kickers installed in the channel. Securely […]
January 27 2014
Fish where you live: Science hints at the real health values of blue-green spaces in our towns and cities
New results from a 5-year research project carried out by the University of Exeter show that moving to greener spaces in towns and cities can have positive, lasting health benefits. From a summary in a property feature in last week’s Metro: The study traced 1,000 people living in British cities for 5 years and found […]
October 25 2013
Restoring the Red River: Manchester’s River Medlock
At last week’s Wild Trout Trust Conservation Awards (no urban winners this time, but we salute them all just the same!) many of our fellow river restorationists kept coming back to one fascinating subject of debate… … the massive ongoing project work by the Environment Agency, Groundwork and the Irwell Rivers Trust to restore Manchester’s […]