PROJECT OVERVIEW
Taking all the lessons learnt over the previous two years, and with support available from the EA and Warwickshire County Council, we decided in June 2019 that the community group could now take on NFM implementation. Our focus shifted to Nethercote Brook, Sutton Brook and the upper reaches of the River Stour itself.
We’ve worked closely with the flood groups in Long Compton, Brailes, and local communities around the Sibfords and other Upper Stour areas to determine flood “hot spots”, identify potential NFM opportunities and build a directory of the riparian landowners in the eastern half of the catchment.
This regional approach allowed us to build up a stock of landowner-approved schemes during the winter months. These were then allocated implementation slots between April and October to fit in with landowner preferences and contractor availability.
Tried and tested processes from Project 1 have served us well, and we have been able to draw on excellent policy guidance from the EA, Rivers Trust and other agencies. For larger ponds and bunds we have commissioned specialist designs and drawings from a local specialist company Storm Geomatics.
As a result, and thanks to the support of more than 15 landowners, we now have a further 280 NFM measures, bringing the total around the catchment to around 700.
The Coronavirus crisis has forced us to push back plans for Cherington, Stourton, Sutton and the lower reaches of Nethercote Brook to 2021, when hopefully we will be able to start landowner engagement in these areas.
KEY FEATURES
PROJECT 2 SCHEMES
Below are examples of the schemes that have been implemented in this project.
The Sib
300m of river
18 Dams and 1 offline pond
June 2019 and August 2020
Desktop analysis of the sub-catchment suggested an opportunity for a set of leaky dams on the Sib brook. During fieldwork to scope out detailed design we spotted an opportunity to enlarge and enhance an existing pond on a neighbour’s land. Storm Geomatics provided detailed designs and the result is a large offline storage area with capacity to hold 2 million litres of water.
Nethercote Brook
800m
25 dams, 1 FWRA and 2 Ponds
September 2019 and August 2020
A mix of interventions in this scheme. Starting at the top, we laid down diverter logs to create a Forested Water Retention Area of just under an acre, then installed dozen Leaky Dams, before reaching an existing offline pond. This has been de-silted and enlarged to provide new storage capacity of over 1 million litres. A second set of 12 dams will help to slow the flow further before the brook flows into another existing pond which the landowner has very kindly extended and enhanced.
Stour stream
250m
10 dams and 1 RAF
July2020
This small scheme on a tributary of the Upper Stour takes advantage of a hectare of low lying land which the landowner is happy to be used for flood alleviation measures. Leaky dams on the stream and channels cut into the roadside verges will divert floodwater into an enhanced area of wetland, and away from the persistently flooding road.
Blockley Brook
25 Leaky Dams
500m
September 2020
During the heavy rainfall of 2019 were able to observe an established scheme in operation. This exercise suggested that minor modifications to an offline pond and it’s diverter dam were needed, but it also indicated a significant opportunity for further damming upstream on this important tributary. As a result a further 20 LWDs were installed in 2020.
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