If you’ve read Trout in Dirty Places, or followed this site’s blog posts for long, you’ll likely know how much of a role Manchester’s beautiful but plastic-polluted River Tame has played in the growth of the urban flyfishing and river restoration movements (hint: quite a lot… and it’s still continuing!)
Which naturally meant it was highly appropriate for the Wild Trout Trust’s Trout in the Town team to choose Stalybridge, on the banks of the Tame, as the venue for their latest Urban Conclave this last weekend…
… not just for the purposes of assembling urban warriors to hear speakers like Mike Forty (Ribble Rivers Trust), Simon Ogden (Sheaf and Porter Rivers Trust), and Joe Pecorellli (ZSL: Outfall Safaris) and share experiences from city streams across the UK…
… but also for launching the Trust’s brand new Trout in the Town Urban River Toolkit.
Written by Theo Pike and Paul Gaskell, this new Toolkit updates the WTT’s original Urban River Guidelines with almost 10 more years of hard-won learning and experience. So it’s a full 98 pages of practical, empowering advice for anyone who wants to care for their local urban waterway, with detailed strategies for:
- Understanding urban rivers and their surroundings
- Organising river cleanups and other events
- Inspiring and motivating volunteers
- Funding and fundraising
- Practical aspects of running an urban river group
- Exciting project ideas
- Case studies from successful Trout in the Town groups: SERT, River Worth Friends and CATCH
- Getting your group accredited as an official Trout in the Town chapter
- And much, much more
A pdf version of the complete Urban River Toolkit can now be downloaded from the WTT website for FREE, or you can order your own printed copy via Amazon for just £15.99:
If the new Urban River Toolkit inspires you to start looking after your own river, anywhere in the world, don’t hesitate to contact the Wild Trout Trust to help you develop your thoughts further…
