After working on the Wellow Brook for the whole of September we have finished this section of river restoration work! We have had a fantastic few weeks building in-stream habitat structures in Somerset at Midsomer Norton and Stoney Littleton, which will provide habitat for juvenile fish, scour sediment from riverbed gravels and create flow diversity by forming shallow areas and deeper pools.
In total we built 34 structures which is a tremendous achievement!
A completed woody debris structure
The woody debris structures, made from coppiced trees from the riverbank, will gradually accumulate sediment over time which will re-meander the channel within its banks and re-naturalise the stream. Within a few days we could already see sediment accumulating on the structures and the river meandering around them, so we’re looking forward to monitoring them in future. Re-naturalising the channel will improve habitat for invertebrates and fish, and therefore benefit all of the other wildlife which relies on this river too.
Volunteers at Midsomer Norton
BART would like to say a huge thank you to all of the volunteers who got involved in this project, without you we could not have achieved anywhere near as much as we did! Building the structures is hard work but all of our wonderful volunteers were happy to get stuck in and remained enthusiastic, even when it rained!
Working hard to secure those posts!
Another thank you to the Environment Agency Asset Performance Flood and Coastal Risk Management team who joined us for a day at Stoney Littleton, you were a great help!
Happy volunteers!
We hope to keep working on this stretch of river, and are continuing to look for further opportunities where improvements can be made…so watch this space!
A final thank you to our funders who made this work possible. To the People’s Postcode Trust for funding the restoration work in Midsomer Norton, and the Environment Agency and Bristol Avon Catchment Partnership for funding the work at Stoney Littleton.
