The Aire Rivers Trust current-aims-and-targets

Current aims and targets

The Aire Rivers Trust was formed in 2011 and, at present, is concentrating on improving fish passage, river clean ups, educational projects, water quality issues, improved access and eradication of alien invasive plant species.
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Plans for footpath changes at Apperley Bridge

Apperley Bridge

Apperley Bridge footpath change will improve safety and view for walkers

According to The Wharfedale Observer News

A Horsforth councillor has backed plans to change the route of a footpath to make it safer and to improve the view for walkers.

The plans will see an existing footpath close to Woodhouse Grove School in Apperley Bridge amended to make it safer for users by taking its route away from shared vehicle access and instead take it along the river Aire, improving the riverside views for walkers.

It will also add a total of 86 metres to the Leeds Country Way along the banks of the River Aire.

Councillor Dawn Collins said: “I am glad that, working with Bradford Council and Woodhouse Grove School, we are able to make this change.

“The current path begins in an area with shared vehicular access and, as a result, these changes will take walkers away from the threat posed by moving traffic.

“It is also pleasing that there will now be more attractive riverside views for walkers, hopefully making it a more popular route and increasing its usage by local people.

“Of course it will now have improved links to the Leeds Country Way so it will offer walkers in Horsforth better access to that route as well. I would also like to thank Woodhouse Grove School for their co-operation with this project.”

Where does your rod licence money go? Barbel in the Aire…

Barbel, aire, stocking

It is a question which I often hear from anglers when they cough up their hard-earned cash every year to pay for their fishing licence: “What does the Environment Agency do with the money?”

Apart from a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes, such as flood defence and pollution issues plus administration costs which receive very little publicity, one of their major projects is at Calverton in Nottinghamshire which is the home of a huge fish farm.

The main species bred there are barbel, chub and roach plus many other species and the resulting fish are used to replenish stocks all over the country.

The latest figures released by the Environment Agency show that over the past year more than 400,000 fish will have been released with our region, the North East, gaining the biggest share with 20 per cent of the haul, which works out at around 83,500 fish. The North West and Midlands both collected 15 per cent (63,000).

The numbers of the various species stocked were chub (91,000), barbel (67,000), roach (56,000), grayling (54,000), rudd (46,000), bream (39,000), tench (37,000) and dace (18,000).

I reported recently that the River Aire below Keighley and several other places down to Thwaites Mill in Leeds had had an influx of barbel in the eight- to-nine inch category and these were thriving for fish from an earlier stocking a few years ago are now in the four-pound class.

From an article in The Yorkshire Evening Post on 27 February 2013

Friends of the Bradford Becks (Facebook)

Folks
If you are on Facebook, please note the new Friends of Bradford Beck page, (Page is now a Group with a slightly different name and a new address) and like it!
http://www.facebook.com/groups/421086317957469/

Barney
Director
Mob:
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Michael C
Project Officer
Mob:
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David B
Aire Rivers Trust website admin
Mob:
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phone no.s available via contacts page

Dowley Gap Locks and Aqueduct (Seven Arches)

Now 17th February

Dowley Gap Locks and Aqueduct aka seven arches

Bring your wellies.

Way back in December (19th) a flyer made the rounds by eMail for a local open day as part of the Winter closures program original planned for 27th January at Dowley Gap Locks and the Seven Arches Aqueduct

Due to the inclement weather i.e. the freeze, the work has been postponed and the Open day rearranged for 17th February, we learned in an email of

An article by Martin Wainwright about this was published in the Guardian and its Northerner Blog originally on the 9th January

Later post on the Guardian Northerner Blog (Jan 24th)

The original flyer is Dowley Gap Lock & Aqueduct poster

Other quite successful open days have been held on days in the past few years at other locations

At this location the Canal passes over the River Aire in an aqueduct of seven brick and stone arches. the canal has been leaking quite seriously at the east end of the aqueduct

The event also appears in the events column on the Canal and Rivers Trust website


The Canal & River Trust is a new charity entrusted with the care of 2,000 miles of waterways in England and Wales. Get involved, join us – Visit / Donate / Volunteer at www.canalrivertrust.org.uk

Canal & River Trust is a charitable company limited by guarantee registered in England & Wales with company number 7807276 and charity number 1146792. Registered office address First Floor North, Station House, 500 Elder Gate, Milton Keynes MK9 1BB.

EA Consultation – River Flow and Water Abstraction Standards re Hydropower

This is an Environment Agency Consultation on which we should all be making our views heard, whether as Rivers Trust members, Anglers, Ecologists, Walkers, Cyclists or any other river (or riverbank) user.
Rather than expressing my views hers I’ll just copy and paste from today Monday’s email 2013-01-21

Consultation on river flow and water abstraction standards for hydropower will
be available for you to view and comment between the following dates:

Start date: 21/01/13 09:00

End date: 02/04/13 23:59

Please select the following link to view this event:

https://consult.environment-agency.gov.uk/portal/ho/br/standards/hydro

If the link appears to be broken, please try copying the entire link into the
address bar on your web browser.

This e-mail has been automatically generated by the Consultation software.

There was also a block about confidentiality of the email, but since anyone can sign up for the consultations alert, anyone can see that block for themselves if they sign up.

You can sign up yourself to be alerted of EA Consultations at http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/library/consultations/consultations.aspx

Rivers Trust Newsletters – past issues

Here are a set of links to the webpages archive of Rivers Trust newsletters

Earlier newsletters (available for download or viewing in your Web Browser) full list visible when logged in
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BRADFORD BECK CATCHMENT PLAN Agreement Event 21.11.12

BRADFORD BECK CATCHMENT PLAN

Agreement Event 21.11.12

Saltaire Methodist Church,
Saltaire Road,
Shipley,
West Yorkshire
BD18 3HJ

  • Session 1 – 15:00 – 17:30
  • Session 2 – 19:00 – 20:30

The project is to hold its scheduled ‘agreement’ event on Wednesday 21st November at the Saltaire Methodist Church over two sessions. The event will examine issues that have become evident through the numerous consultations and events we have held over the year about the beck and its management into the future. Both of these sessions will look at the picture of the beck that has been gathered thus far through water quality and ecological assessments, the 6 visions for the beck, as well as a summary of potential future projects to take the project forward. All are welcome!
The first session from 3:00 pm – 5:30 pm is for the institutional stakeholders and associated professionals and the second from 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm is for the wider public. The reasons we are doing these across two sessions is to cater for the numbers of attendees, and that the focus of each session is slightly different. The Church is 8-10 minutes walk from Saltaire Train Station and there is a carpark nearby on the corner of Caroline Street and Victoria Road.

If you would like to book a place please email me, and feel free to distribute this further to colleagues and/or friends who might be interested in attending.

With kind regards,

Michael Canning (M.Sc, IEEM, SER)
Ecologist

Bradford Beck Project Officer
Aire Rivers Trust

michael.canning@aireriverstrust.org

http://bradfordbeck.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Friends-of-Bradford-Beck/

Aire Rivers Trust, a company limited by guarantee, company number 07464227.
Registered as a charity – registration number 1145609.

Invasive species research – your help needed (2)!

Dear readers,

From: Nigel Taylor

Message: Dear Sir/Madam,

I am a new PhD student at the University of Leeds, investigating the
impacts of and interactions between invasive species. I am focusing on the
signal crayfish and Chinese mitten crab.

It seems as if the River Aire could provide some interesting field sites
where these two invaders may meet, with crayfish moving downstream and
mitten crabs moving up. Unfortunately, published data on the invaders’
distributions is scant.

I was wondering if you could provide any information on these two species
in the Aire. Any anecdotal sightings (from informal surveys, residents near
the river, angling clubs etc.) would be very useful. If you have no
information at present, do you have a mailing list or way of circulating my
request so I can be informed if any river users see these species?

Many thanks in advance for your assistance.

Regards,
Nigel Taylor

————————————

Nigel Taylor
Postgraduate Research Student
Manton Building 8.17
University of Leeds
Clarendon Way LS2 9JT

E-mail: bsngt@leeds.ac.uk
Mobile: + 44 7837 454 076

Killer shrimp and the ruddy duck – how should they be managed?

Killer shrimp and the ruddy duck – how should they be managed? The Law Commission are asking in new consultation on wildlife law: http://goo.gl/s7bH7

Open date: 14 August 2012

Close date: 30 November 2012

Related documents

Spotted via a twitter digest.

EA consultations

Latest EA consultation:

A consultation on Working Together to deliver river basin management

The Environment Agency has for a long time had a consultations system, some consultations relate to environmental permitting, many to other areas of the agency’s remit.

These consultations always run for a month or more, at the end of the period the Environment Agencywrites a report summarising the responses and how the EA proposes to respond to the consultation.

The consultations summary page is at this link, a list of open and most recent closed consultations can be found here (6 are currently open at the time of writing – 2012-06-22)

I’m highlighting this on the website rather than trustees email, since I feel the process should have wider publicity.

You can register a consultee account at register, most consultations require you to login to take part in the process.

Today a fairly important consultation for Rivers Trusts and others interested in riverine issues started, its a 6 month consultation.
NB: Not all the article appears in the news grid, this italic note only appears when not logged in.

Attachments: 2 external links (there are 9 more but only 2 are relevant to our catchment) (1 national document and 10 basin catchments)

Details »

Sunday Observer – water quality cleaning costs

Spotted in the Sunday Observer 2012-06-03
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MarkP

£30bn bill to purify water system after toxic impact of contraceptive pill

Drug firms oppose an EU call for controls on potent chemicals that have been blamed for the gender mutation of freshwater fish

see original article or read full text below (when viewed as single article)

also related article: ‘Toxic stew’ of chemicals causing male fish to carry eggs in testes (Guardian Wed 21 April 2010) linked to in the article
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Aire Rivers Trust seeks helpers for Bradford Beck clean up

The following article appeared in the Telegraph and Argus today (Mon 21 May 2012)

Aire Rivers Trust seeks helpers for Bradford Beck clean up

A training day for volunteers to carry out periodic water sampling is to take place Thursday, June 14, at Bradford University, 13:00 (1 pm)

DavidB pp Michael Canning

Bradford Beck next phase
Bradford Beck Project


T+A Article text follows
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