The Environment Agency and Yorkshire Wildlife Trust have worked together on the ‘Wild Wiske Revival: Clean and Green’ project over the last three years.

New wetland habitat, reduced pollution and a restored river bank are just some of the enhancements made in a three-year £230,000 project to improve water quality in a North Yorkshire River.

The wide ranging ‘Wild Wiske Revival: Clean and Green’ project, carried out in partnership between the Environment Agency and Yorkshire Wildlife Trust, focused on restoration of the River Wiske, a heavily modified North Yorkshire river.

Land management caused sediment and its associated nutrients and chemicals to enter the river, smothering the river bed and leaving few areas for fish to spawn. This was exacerbated by livestock accessing the river and compounded by unstable river banks and erosion.

Three-year project

Working closely with landowners, the project – near Northallerton – started in April 2019 and centred on creating new habitat and reducing the amount of sediment and water run-off from land and farms entering the river. Yorkshire Wildlife Trust action included:

• installing over 3.5 miles of fencing to prevent livestock going into the river, reducing sediment and allowing the river banks to recover,
• planting over 1,500 trees and 300m of new hedgerow to stabilise the river banks, reduce run-off from the land into the river, provide habitat for wildlife and increase shade to cool the water in summer,
• reprofiling 1,300m of river bank to reduce erosion,
• uncovering a 500m culvert at South Otterington, creating 1.5ha of new wetland habitat and reducing flooding to farmland and farm buildings,
• giving advice to five landowners on pest management to reduce pollution entering the watercourse.

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