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Win
ter 2014/15
A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A CATCHMENT PARTNERSHIP
Issue 2
A number of successful projects got underway dur-ing 2014, thanks to funding from the Thames Wa-ter Fund and the London Mayor’s Big Green Fund.
The Environment Agency also launched the con-sultation for the River Basin Management Plans (RBMP) and Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMP), to which everyone is invited to take part.
The impact of the major pollution events of 2011 and 2013 on the River Crane is still evident, how-ever there are signs of improvement to the extent that the fish restocking programme started early in December.
You can read more about the above and more in this Newsletter.
Thames Water FundThe first Thames Water Fund projects were ap-proved in February of this year. So far four projects have received funding from the Fund, to the value of approximately £97,000. Two of the projects are citizen science monitoring projects, whilst the oth-er two involve physical improvements.
Citizen Crane
Two water quality monitoring projects commenced in May - the River Monitoring Initiative (RMI), man-aged by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and which links with a national initiative undertaken across 80 to 90 rivers; and the River Crane Phos-phorous Monitoring project, managed by frogen-vironmental with assistance from Friends of the River Crane (FORCE). The two projects are closely linked and managed under the affectionate name of “Citizen Crane”, as it was christened at the first steering group meeting.
A successful forum meeting was held on 17 Sep-tember at the London Zoo, to which all the citizen scientists as well as other interested parties were invited.
Newsletter Winter 2014/151
The survey team from of Ickenham Marsh Partnership
Aquatic Refuge Project
The Aquatic Refuge project includes the reconnection of two meanders, one within the London Wildlife Trust Nature Reserve at Crane Meadows, and the other further upstream at Crane Bank, Cranford; flood plain enhancement at Green Lane; and two feasibility studies to determine the viability of backwater restoration at a site in Brazil Mill Wood and at Causeway Road.
These two meanders are the last of five me-anders on this section of the River Crane to be reconnected. The other three were pre-viously reconnected by the Environment Agency and London Borough of Hounslow.
The project is managed by the London Wildlife Trust, partnering with the Lon-don Boroughs of Hounslow and Hillingdon and working closely with the Environment Agency. Support from volunteer groups are also provided.
The work on the meanders are completed and the feasibility studies have been writ-ten up. The flood plain enhancement work at Green Lane will be completed during the spring of 2015.
Below are photos of the meander at Crane Meadows before and after reconnection.
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River Basin Management & Flood Risk Management Plans
ConsultationOn 10 October 2014, the Environment Agency published the draft River Basin Management Plan (RBMP) and draft Flood Risk Management Plan (FRMP) for consultation.
There are 10 river basin districts within Eng-land and Wales for which RBMPs ad FRMPs have been drawn up.
The consultation for the FRMP closes on 31 January 2015, whilst the RBMP consultation closes on 10 April 2015.
A link to the consultation documents can be found on the CVP website (http://www.cranevalley.org.uk/news/post/consultation-RBMP-FRMP.html). The Crane catchment is part of the Thames river basin. Additional in-formation pertinent to the Crane catchment, which can assist you with your response to the questions asked in the consultation, are also included through the above link.
Workshop to discuss actions
A workshop to discuss the actions proposed for the Crane catchment has been organised for 10 February 2015 at the Environment Agen-cy offices in Hatfield (Apollo Court, 2 Bishop
Mill Road and Willow Way wetland projects
This project is managed by the London Bor-ough of Richmond-upon-Thames, with sup-port from Friends of the Rver Crane Environ-ment (FORCE) and other volunteer groups such as The Conservation Volunteers and the Environment Trust.
The aim of the project is to create two exten-sive new wetland and marginal habitat areas along the lower River Crane. This links with backwater areas created at Pevensey Road Nature Reserve and Donkey Wood in the Lon-don Borough of Council.
The work should be completed by October 2015.
Meander reconnection at Crane Meadows
Before After
1
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Square, St. Albans Rd West, Hatfield, Herts AL10 9EX), between 10:30 and 16:00.
If you are interested in atending this work-shop, please contact Amanda MacLean ([email protected] or 01707 632670 / 07557 190457).
Fish restocking project on lower River Crane
Following two major sewage spills during 2011 and 2013 on the lower River Crane, aquatic life within the river system was severly affected.
To assist the river in its recovery, the Environ-ment Agency has started a four year restock-ing programme, with 1+ year class fish intro-duced on 3 December 2014. The fish species include:
• chubb• dace• roach• barbel
A report on the impacts of the abovementioned pollution events on the fish populations with-in the River Crane has also been released by the Environment Agency. This can be down-loaded from the CVP website (http://www.cranevalley.org.uk/news/post/crane-dnr-fish-impact-assessment-2011.html).
Barbel before introduced into the river
If you have any questions or queries re-lated to the fish restocking programme or the report, please send these to [email protected].
Only Rain in RiversA new campaign has been launched to make people more aware of the pollution entering our rivers and waterways and to promote the principle that only rain should enter rivers.
Around 10% of properties in London are accidentally polluting their local water-ways through bad plumbing.
The campaign is managed by Thames21, in partnership with the members of the Crane Valley Partnership, Brent Catch-ment Partnership, and Roding, Beam & Ingrebourne Catchment Partnership, with support from Thames Water and the En-vironment Agency.
More information is provided on the Thames21 website:http://www.thames21.org.uk/onlyraininrivers.
As part of the campaign, Londeners have been asked to pledge their support using one of the following methods:
http://facebook.com/onlyraininrivers.
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For more information, please visit:www.cranevalley.org.uk
or contact
Dr Ilse SteylCVP Development Manager:[email protected]
Native Species NurseryGreen Corridor is developing a unique native species nursery with support from the GLA (through the Big Green Fund) and Heathrow Ltd., at the charity’s new training site close to Terminal 5.
The ultimate aim of the nursery is to grow native species, including fruit trees that will support work undertaken by the local boroughs and landowners in addressing invasive species and creating new/im-proved habitats.
Raised beds, irrigation systems, potting on benches and important wetland beds for suc-cessfully raising native marginal plants are be-ing built and created by students undertaking Green Corridor’s land based courses. The in-frastructure will be very soon, with the stu-dents collecting native seed stock from Spring 2015. Local boroughs are currently pulling to-gether seed lists of plants they would like to see the nursery support, along with sites that would be suitable for seed collecting.
