Annual Report2019

Caring for the rivers of the Yorkshire Dales

Contents

4 Chair’s introduction Chris Ryder Looks Back at 2018/19 and

Forward to Future Challenges

6 Building a more resilient Rivers Trust Trust Director Charles Forman Explains

His Vision for the Future of Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust

5 Rivers 2U Rivers2U aims to deliver sessions to

schools and local communities designed to inform children and the wider public about rivers and their associated wildlife

8 Lowland Natural Flood Management Demonstration Area

As a result of the Boxing Day floods in 2015, YDRT were awarded £50,000 of Defra funding to lead a Natural Flood Management (NFM) community project within the Collingham Beck catchment.

9 Putting Catchment Management Plans to Work

How Catchment Management plans have helped to move things forward in the Dales to Vale Rivers Network (DVRN)

Annual Report 2019

10 Valuing our Uplands The critical importance of the uplands for

the natural and human environment and the current threats they face

11 Volunteers for the Future YDRT Trustee Frank Broughton considers

the issues involved in maintaining our volunteer effort

12 Contact us Including details of our main partners and

sponsors

Annual Report 2019

Chair’s introduction

Chris Ryder Looks Back at 2018/19 and Forward to Future Challenges

AT THE END OF FINANCIAL YEAR 2018/19 there were plenty of signs to show how far YDRT has come: our work on natural flood

management (NFM) resonating with farmers, catchment practitioners and government officials and attracting many visitors to our demonstration site in Wharfedale; our mobile classroom on the road and much in demand and ongoing work to develop several fish pass projects. At the same time, the Dales to Vale Rivers Network (DVRN) through which we deliver our Defra-funded work to create and host catchment partnerships, is continuing to drive a range of new partnership projects.

Natural Flood Management The interest in NFM has continued to grow, thanks to the efforts of our project officers. Dan Turner has delivered several talks on the subject including at the Rivers Trust Spring Conference in April 2018. We collaborated with the International Union for Conservation of Nature to hold a successful event on upland land management in Bishopdale. This resulted in Dan and our trustee Robert Brown being invited to a meeting at the House of Commons (see Dan’s article at page 10). Our various NFM projects across different catchments include

Brompton (Northallerton), Bishopdale and Collingham exemplifying different geographies and ways of working. Over the year we created 10 scrapes, 60 leaky dams, 1.85km of hedges and planted 11,050 trees. Whilst of course mainly about reducing flood risk, these are truly multi-benefit projects.

The Mobile Classroom Conversion under our Rivers 2U project was completed in April 2018. Since then Catherine and the van, supported by three regular volunteers, have been busy with school visits, agricultural shows and education events. Feedback has been consistently good and great enthusiasm has been generated. Catherine gives more detail on her efforts in her article on page 7.

Fish PassesThe Trust is hoping to progress a total of three fish pass projects at Flint Mill and Tadcaster on the River Wharfe and at Topcliffe on the River Swale. These are very complex projects in terms of design, securing permissions and the need to consult with and satisfy all interested parties as well as the usual issue of securing funding. Despite the challenges, delivering these projects and related benefits for fish passage and habitats is central to our ambitions and rated as a national priority by the Environment Agency.

Annual Report 2019

Dales to Vale Rivers Network The catchment plans we developed for our rivers are proving an excellent evolving mechanism for driving partnership projects: Sarah Clarke and Charlotte Simons have supported partners with bids for Environment Agency Water Environment Grant projects: projects on the Wiske, Nidd and Stank Beck (Harewood) were successful, resulting in a total of £750,000 of funding for projects on our rivers.

New Staff We welcomed Helen Saunders who completed a short-term contract on the Addingham 4 Becks project with Charlotte and the Addingham Environment Group; and in August Sarah Clarke as the senior partnership officer for the Swale, Ure, Nidd, Ouse (SUNO) catchment. In addition, with her expertise on invasive non-native species (INNS) and biosecurity, Sarah successfully bid for the Rapid Life Biosecurity project. Under this we coordinate biosecurity efforts not only in our catchments but across the north of England and Midlands. Sarah is now working up a complementary project on INNS control.

Thank YouHearty thanks for how far we have come are due to Charles, our Director, for his leadership, oversight and strategic

thinking, not to mention taking the weight on some of the more challenging issues we have faced; to our seven fantastic staff whose commitment, enthusiasm and dedication just cannot be beaten. The support of our Trustees has also been invaluable in helping both me and Charles deal with the challenges we face in our respective roles. Last, but far from least, we owe a debt of gratitude to our volunteers who come out in all weathers and contribute massively to our projects from education to tree and hedge planting. The volunteers put in 1,500 hours during the year: we truly could not do without them and must do everything we can to make volunteering a really attractive proposition (Frank Broughton’s article on page zzz discusses some of the issues involved in sustaining and developing our volunteer effort).

Resilience and looking forward. A group of impending initiatives (covered in more depth by Charles Forman on page 6) is important here: (1) the Heritage Lottery-funded “YDRT’s Roaring Twenties” project to develop a business plan setting out how YDRT can best be structured, governed, focused and gain funding so as to become resilient and thrive in the 2020s and

beyond; (2) an evolvable vision document and project pipeline, developed by Charles after workshops with staff, to help focus our future project work; and (3) DVRN’s participation in a resilient catchment partnerships project under which the Charities Aid Foundation, funded by the EA, will help DVRN pilot the development of a blueprint for how the partnerships can continue to grow, build financial resilience and make more of an impact in future years.

It’s impossible to overstate the importance of using these opportunities to understand and adopt the steps necessary to achieve stability and resilience. We are succeeding very well in building the business and attracting funding in the transitional context that prevails at present, but to survive and thrive we’ll need to have the adaptability to cope with whatever model emerges for funding and delivering the Government’s 25-year plan for the environment. Every reason, therefore, to use these projects to get our structure, governance, fund-raising and synergised action by all parts of YDRT and DVRN as good as it can be.

Annual Report 2019

Building a more resilient Rivers Trust

Trust Director Charles Forman Explains His Vision for the Future of Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust

THE TRUST HAS GROWN AND CHANGED A LOT since I started in June 2017. We have been able to attract more work and have

taken on a variety of different projects. There will be more to come. Several of our main projects will be completed at the end of this financial year so it will be essential to start to develop some follow-on projects. Earlier this year we held a workshop with trustees to come up with a range of proposals to work up over the next six months. There are some really exciting initiatives so watch out for further information in future newsletters

However it’s important not to be focused exclusively on the immediate pressures of project development and delivery. Over the second half of the financial year I started to think about the longer-term future of the YDRT, specifically where the Trust is going and what it should it look like in the future. Central to this is where

our funding comes from as well as the structure and governance of the charity. Following several facilitated workshops with staff members I wrote a draft vision document, which has been reviewed by the trustees. This is a ‘work in progress’ rather than a final document as it raises some key questions about our priorities which need to be answered. Perhaps the most important of these is how best we can further develop the Trust in terms of its core financial strength and operational efficiency.

With this in mind, I bid for and successfully secured funding from the Heritage Lottery Resilience Fund for a new project which we’re calling the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust’s Roaring Twenties. The aim of Roaring Twenties is to aid the Trust to become more resilient and effective: the main output will be a business plan setting out recommendations for the Trust’s objectives in terms of size, structure and governance and also the potential for tapping into the widest possible range

of funding opportunities. The bid also includes more resources for training and development of staff.

In order to get the most out of Roaring Twenties I will be seeking advice from charity experts as well as visiting larger rivers trusts to learn from them. The Project will be working in parallel with the Resilient Catchment Partnerships Project, which is funded and led by the Charities Aid Foundation. The Dales to Vale Rivers Network developed by YDRT is one of the catchment partnerships which has successfully bid to be part of the Resilient Catchment Project. The main theme will be how best to explain and publicise the benefits of our work. These two initiatives could not have come at a better time in terms of ensuring a secure future for the Trust.

I see the next twelve months very much as a year of transition as we step back and work out where we are going and how we will get there. There are significant challenges ahead, including the loss of European funding post-Brexit but with proper planning and advice, we will be able to create a more effective Trust which has the resilience to thrive in the 2020s and beyond.

Annual Report 2019

THE TRUST’S EDUCATION AND ENGAGEMENT OFFICER, CATHERINE MASON, joined YDRT at the end of 2017. Catherine combines wide teaching and outdoor learning experience with an enthusiasm for wildlife conservation. Here she writes about how the Trust’s Rivers 2U Project has developed over the last year.

Rivers2U is the Trust’s education project, funded by the Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF), which aims to deliver sessions to schools and local communities designed to inform both children and the wider public about rivers and their associated wildlife, how we can help keep our rivers healthy, and reduce the impact of flooding.

Early in 2018 we fitted out a Luton van to create a mobile classroom lab, containing a river table, displays and resources to identify freshwater invertebrates. An important feature in widening the appeal of the converted vehicle is that it offers wheelchair access, which was funded by a grant from the Yorkshire Dales National Park’s Sustainable Development Fund.

Activities in schools are linked to the National Curriculum. This is essential when both primary and secondary schools are so focused on N.C. requirements. We have therefore developed a programme which offers suitably tailored sessions to children of all ages across our catchments. Between April 2018 and March 2019, we worked with 23 schools, delivering free sessions to 27 classes for over 800 children. From our evaluations, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive:

“They (the children) were particularly enthused by the Invertebrate ID session – they didn’t want to stop!” (Year 3)

“Thank you for an outstanding outdoor learning experience for our students. We covered a range of topics perfect for their AQA GCSE course” (Year 9)

In 2018 we also attended 22 agricultural shows, festivals, nature reserves and community events across the area, giving

us the opportunity to engage with local people to tell them about our work and explain the small changes everyone can make to help us work with rivers and nature to benefit our environment. We have a full programme of shows, events and school bookings already in place for summer 2019.

In March 2019 I took the Rivers2U van along to a national education training day hosted by the Eden Rivers Trust, to showcase the van and demonstrate the opportunities it creates for accessible river education. It’s fair to say that we are leading the field in having this facility to take river education out into schools, thereby negating the need to find transport costs from limited school budgets. I’m pleased to say that the van raised great interest amongst the educationalists attending the training day.

Looking to the future, we are reviewing the displays and activities in the mobile classroom, and investigating opportunities to work with both neighbouring rivers trusts and potential corporate partners, further developing our outreach. Our HLF funding finishes in October 2019, so we are currently grant-seeking to continue the project, and also looking at ways of extending rivers education through exciting partnership work … watch this space!

Catherine can be contacted via education@ydrt.co.uk

Rivers 2U

Children learning how to identify freshwater invertebrates

Rivers2U mobile classroom

Annual Report 2019

Lowland Natural Flood Management Demonstration Area

AS A RESULT OF THE BOXING DAY FLOODS IN 2015, the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust were awarded £50,000 of Defra funding to

lead a Natural Flood Management (NFM) community project within the Collingham Beck catchment. The three-year project aims to work with the local community to deliver interventions on the ground that will work with natural processes to help store and slow the flow of water within the catchment.

Over the past 18 months I’ve been working closely with Beech Grove Farm and neighbouring landowners in Scarcroft to deliver several NFM interventions with the aim of creating a lowland NFM demonstration area.

NFM features within the area include leaky dams, leaky boards, scrapes, hedge planting, increasing riparian buffer strips and riparian and wet woodland planting. Across the project there has been 300 volunteer hours contributed to the delivery of these interventions which equates to around £2,000 worth of labour. Mott Macdonald Consultants have also contributed a total of £22,000 of their staff time and resources carrying out desk-based analysis in support of the Project. The outputs from this work have helped to guide the project and provide evidence on where these structures and features are best placed within the catchment. Mott Macdonald staff have become a key part of the project, volunteering their own time to install leaky dams and plant trees.

In several cases, the works we’ve

carried out within the demonstration area are being closely monitored with the use of time-lapse cameras which take photographs every five minutes to capture how, for example, the leaky dams and scrapes are acting during rainfall events. The footage is being analysed by a Leeds University Student, who is gathering valuable evidence on how frequently these structures operate and how effective they are. We are also monitoring the wider benefits that these features can provide, for example we have recently identified frog spawn in one of the scrapes created.

Since the start of the 2019, Marie has started to show small groups of people around the demonstration area, which have included staff from Yorkshire Water, the Environment Agency and the Don Catchment Rivers Trust. In March the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust invited all its members along for what proved to be a very successful visit to see the demonstration area. We are now looking forward to inviting more groups to the site, in particular flood affected communities, an initiative that would link in with our Wharfedale Connecting Communities project.

As part of increasing our engagement and education around NFM, we are developing a circular walk route with the farm, which will provide a map with information about NFM work, local history and the farm itself. The Wharfe levy fund has helped to fund this aspect of the work, enabling us to install interpretation boards and signage along the walking route. We hope that the route will be completed by the end of the summer.

There is plenty of scope for more NFM work in this area and the Project will continue to deliver further interventions over the next 18 months, working in various locations across the Collingham Beck catchment.

The Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust would like to thank Mott Macdonald, East Keswick Wildlife Trust, Leeds University, Leeds City Council, Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, farmers, landowners and volunteers for all their help and support towards the delivery of the project so far.

Volunteers planting a hedge to intercept run-off fromsteep ground at Beech Grove Farm

Project Officer Marie Taylor gives an update on this exciting new development

Annual Report 2019

Putting Catchment Management Plans to WorkCharlotte Simons explains how Catchment Management plans have helped to move things forward in the Dales to Vale Rivers Network (DVRN)

LAST YEAR RITA MERCER AND I DREW TOGETHER THE CATCHMENT MANAGEMENT PLANS (CMPS) for the Dales rivers

covered by the Dales to Vale Rivers Network (DVRN). These web-based plans were launched in Feb 2018 and rather than being “just another document,” Rita’s successor Sarah Clarke and I have been using them to further develop work in our catchments.

How have we done this? There are several ways that we have and are using CMPs.

Setting up live projects. In the Wharfe catchment there is Addingham 4 Becks, a Community led project, that is now up and running with funding from the Wharfe Flood Partnership (see the article in YDRT’s Autumn 2018 Newsletter).

Supporting bids for the Water Environment Grant (WEG) Scheme.The WEG provided funding for projects that improve the water environment in rural England. We supported partners to write five applications across our catchments. For each one we could clearly state how these matched in with the aspirations for the catchment which resulted from the CMP consultations. The CMPs demonstrate clearly to potential funders that projects are part of a wider vision for the catchment and will result in more benefits than projects acting alone.

Supporting applications for Natural Flood Management Projects.Following the Boxing Day floods in 2015, the Government made available two funds for NFM measure delivery. From our CMPs we could demonstrate that NFM was a key theme for each of our rivers. Within the DVRN area there are now five NFM projects up and running

Developing a project pipeline. Sometimes all the work you are doing comes together at once – like having a

perfect project for a funding opportunity that comes up. Sometimes a funding opportunity appears and potential applicants scrabble around trying to find a project to fit it. By having a project pipeline, we will have available a list of projects agreed by the DVRN that are funding-ready, covering different areas of work. Each of the projects will have a mandate that outlines all its aspects – aims, objectives, costs, outline of the works involved, current partners interested and potential partners to name but a few of the elements covered - handy for when funding opportunities arrive. The mandates are being developed by the partners within the DVRN.

Being clear on our objectives.This is crucial!

“Headwaters <-> Humber: Catchments Reconnected

We will take the Swale, Ure, Nidd, Ouse and Wharfe river catchments from surviving to thriving by reconnecting the rivers, landscape and communities”

“Noble Cause” “Mission Statement” “Vision” are some of the terms used to headline this concise statement encapsulating what DVRN wants to achieve. With the CMPs in place we can see what people in the catchment want to do and what our role could be in helping to drive this.

Selling the benefits of supporting the DVRN......and the potential that could be funded in each of the catchments. With the project pipeline in place and results on the ground to demonstrate what has been achieved after five years of the DVRN we are in a great position to broadcast the benefits of networking and the potential benefits for the environment to local industry and funders across the catchments. The DVRN made a successful bid for support from the Charity Aid Foundation (CAF) to make the Network more resilient, including the ability to access a wider range of funding. We are one of just four Catchment

partnerships nationally that CAF is working with. Each of the four catchments has a specific theme so that we can all learn from each other. Our theme is about how best to explain and publicise the impact of the DVRN to partners and funders. We already have several critical catchment partnership elements in place including CMPs, a project board, and good partnership networks. Charity experts from CAF are now mentoring us on how to become more resilient and further develop the partnership.

Extending out network into cnew areas.The existing projects publicised in DVRN newsletters, the CMPs, the lists of potential projects and our vision all combine to show that this is a network that does work, achieves improvements on the ground and wants to work in partnership to improve the water environment.

As Catchment Project Officers, Sarah and I could have sat down and worked on all the points above but would we have got it as far as we have? It was Helen Keller who said, “Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” Within the partnership of the DVRN we can achieve so much more and the Catchment Management plans could be considered the start of it all. Actually the start of it all are the wider network of people living and working in the catchments, who know the issues of each river and have ideas that would improve the environment. The CMPs and DVRN are there to help them do just that.

Flyers produced for projects beingsupported by the Dales to ValeCatchment Management Plan

Annual Report 2019

Valuing Our Uplands

THE UPLANDS ARE THE SOURCE OF ALL THE YORKSHIRE DALES RIVER CATCHMENTS and provide a wide

range of benefits including clean water, carbon storage and diverse ecosystems as well as the scope for many kinds of countryside recreation. The ability of the uplands to absorb and store rainwater is also crucial in mitigating flood risk. However intensive land use coupled with climate change is putting increased pressure on upland areas. Loss of peat cover, soil erosion and compaction can result in increased emissions of greenhouse gases as well as faster run-off and higher peaks of floodwater. Installing features such as temporary water storage and leaky dams as well as tree and hedge planting help to improve the capacity to retain excess water. Together with wider measures to combat the degradation of upland soils, such work can play a key role in safeguarding cherished upland landscapes and allowing them to continue to provide economic, social and environmental benefits.

Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust has always been actively involved in the uplands. More recently we have been focusing on several Natural Flood Management (NFM) projects. Our largest is the Bishopdale NFM project funded by Defra in partnership with the Yorkshire Dales National Park Authority and the Environment Agency. This project

(reported on in our Autumn 2018 Newsletter) aims to reduce flood risk at a catchment scale by working with natural processes that also provide wider benefits such as habitat creation.

On the 30th April this year, I and our Trustee Rob Brown went to Westminster to take part in a ‘Valuing the Uplands for Public Benefit’ event, set up by our two local MP’s Julian Sturdy and Rishi Sunak. The event was held in conjunction with the Peatland Code Project established by the International Union for Nature Conservation. Increasing wildfire risk, flooding and drought really emphasise the critical importance of safeguarding our uplands and YDRT, in conjunction with other environmental organisations, has a key role to play in helping politicians and the various interest groups involved, understand the important environmental and economic role of our upland landscapes. In this way we can influence the development and formulation of Government policies in this area.

I believe the Westminster event, attended by the environment minister Dr Thérèse Coffey, was very successful in raising awareness and stimulating fruitful discussion on how to safeguard upland landscapes. It will be important for YDRT and the Rivers Trust movement as a whole, to continue to press for both improved policies and the necessary funding to enable an effective and more sustainable approach to upland management.

Dan Turner, Senior Project Officer with Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust explains the critical importance of the uplands for the natural and human environment and the current threats they face

Local MPs Rishi Sunak and Julian Sturdy with Dr Therese Coffey, Under Secretaryof State at DEFRA, Rob Stoneman, Chair of Yorkshire Wildlife Trust and YDRTTrustee Rob Brown at the “Valuing the Uplands” Event

Annual Report 2019

Volunteers for the Future

THESE DAYS VIRTUALLY EVERY ORGANISATION INVOLVED IN CONSERVATION WORK, whether protecting

wildlife, the countryside or the historic environment, is heavily dependent on volunteers. And not just those active in conservation. Consider the number of other initiatives, ranging from community libraries, cinemas and theatres to support groups for the elderly and disabled (not forgetting sports clubs of all kinds) that simply couldn’t function without the willingness of people to devote their unpaid time to help run them. Even local transport, in the form of community buses and taxi services is increasingly dependent on volunteer drivers.

Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust is no exception. Our volunteers have contributed many hundreds of hours of free labour to Trust projects as varied as tree planting, salmon restocking, leaky dam building and manning the Trust’s stand at local shows. We very much hope this effort can be sustained over

the next few years; however we can’t just assume that it will be. The majority of our volunteers, as is the case with most organisations, are retirees but the steadily increasing average retirement age is likely to be a continuing trend. As a result, the pool of (relatively) young and active retired people could diminish significantly. At the same time, as I’ve already pointed out, the number of organisations competing for volunteer labour seems to grow ever larger.

One way of addressing this issue is to look in other directions for volunteers. A source that the Trust is already tapping into are local firms, especially those working in areas related to the Trust’s activities, that may be willing to provide work parties to help deliver practical tasks or use their expertise to carry out specialist functions such as data analysis or design work. A good example is Mott Macdonald, the Engineering Design, Environmental and Business Consultancy which has, among other contributions, helped with design work for our Lowland NFM Demonstration Project as well as encouraging its staff to volunteer in order help install some of the features needed

for the Project (see Marie Taylor’s article on page 8).

The Trust has also been successful in strengthening its links with the higher education sector. Placement students from sandwich courses have provided important help with Trust projects while at the same time gaining very useful experience in topics relevant to their degrees. Postgraduate students carrying out research in areas related to Trust priorities have also made significant contributions to our project development, an example being the work of Zora Van Leeuwen from Leeds University in providing further evidence on the effectiveness of leaky dams in mitigating flood risk.

Given the ever-widening range of the Trust’s work to safeguard our river environment and combat increasing flood risks, the contribution of volunteers of all kinds will continue to be essential to delivering our objectives. Our Chair Chris Ryder, Charles Forman as Director and YDRT’s Trustees are well aware of this and will give due attention to ensuring that the Trust is able to maintain and strengthen its volunteer effort. And of course, dear reader, if you’re interested in helping to speed the good work, please contact our volunteer co-ordinator Alastair Logan at alastair.logan@ydrt.co.uk No special skills are required and you’ll be sure of a warm welcome.

A dry barn makes a good lunchtime refuge for volunteers ona wet day Mott Macdonald volunteers constructing a leaky dam

Annual Report 2019

YDRT Trustee Frank Broughton considers the issues involved in maintaining our volunteer effort

GEORGE F WHITE

For more information on the Trust and its activities and the Dales to Vale Rivers Network please see our website at:

www.yorkshiredalesriverstrust.com

or contact us at:

Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust 8 King’s Court Pateley Bridge North Yorkshire HG3 5JW

Telephone: 07920 387544

Registered in England No. 5220147Registered Charity No. 1107918

Front cover photograph: River Ure atTanfield. Courtesy of Bruce Stainsby.

Caring for the rivers of the Yorkshire Dales

Annual Report 2019

With special thanks to our main partners and sponsors