We are very pleased to announce that we have received an award from Postcode Local Trust, a grant-giving charity funded entirely by players of People’s Postcode Lottery.
The award will enable BART to deliver river restoration, community awareness and education projects in the Bristol Frome Catchment throughout 2021, bringing local people closer to their green and blue spaces, increasing awareness of the issues facing the river and encouraging and supporting action to enhance the catchment for the benefit of people and nature.
BART are working in the tributaries of the Bristol Frome, South Gloucestershire, to identify opportunities to restore natural processes, reduce the impacts of land use on the watercourses and increase habitat and biodiversity. We will be implementing measures based on our surveys by working with landowners and communities to deliver multi-benefit schemes that will improve water quality, flow diversity and good quality habitat.
Alongside the practical enhancement projects we will be delivering a Sustainable Water Usage project to educate on and encourage responsible water use and provide opportunities to local people for water harvesting. This is increasingly important in the face of a changing climate, with the need for both water saving and for slowing the flow of water through our urban areas in response to increasingly regular extreme weather events.
There will be opportunities for engagement in our WaterBlitz project which will equip Citizen Scientists with the tools and knowledge to test water quality in their local watercourses. The Postcode Local Trust grant will allow BART to focus the event on the Bristol Frome, alongside the Bristol Avon catchment-wide event, and increase the number of participants and amount of data collected through WaterBlitz.
Credit: FreshWater Watch
A key part of the project will be to create digital educational resources for schools to engage local pupils with the Bristol Frome, increase their awareness of the pressures on the river environment and inspire them to take action locally, starting at home. When the circumstances allow we will aim to get pupils down to their local river or stream to learn in a more hands-on way.
We have kick started the project by delivering an online introductory lesson to pupils at Staple Hill Primary School to equip them with the knowledge to write persuasive pieces about water quality in the Bristol Frome and why it is important to fundraise for local causes. We are incredible grateful that the pupils have chosen to set up a fundraising page to support BART to deliver our work, you can view and donate on the page here.
Mr Hillier-Brown, after the pupils viewed the presentation said: “Every child genuinely loved the presentation. They found it informative and engaging. It is also of the quality that looks professional and something we couldn’t not deliver at such a high standard here in school. They chose to change what they were going to write about based on it which goes to show that it had an effect.”
“You have all been so helpful and this has made a huge difference to our children. What started out as just an idea has turned out to something amazing!”
BART plan to deliver educational resources to schools in the Spring so if you are a teacher or a parent at a school in the Bristol Frome Catchment and would be interested in receiving these or finding out more about our work please get in touch with Senior Project Officer, George via email on george@bristolavonriverstrust.org.
We would like to extend our thanks to Postcode Local Trust, funded entirely by players of People’s Postcode Lottery, for the support in bringing this project to life. We look forward to making our Bristol Frome a better place for people and for nature.
