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Witham Partnership Meeting Minutes
9/4/2015
Location: Environment Agency Offices, Lincoln.
Attendance: Lauren Tewson (LT), Fiona McKenna (FM) ,Terry Williams (TW) – Lincolnshire Rivers
Trust (LRT), David Hutchinson (DH), Matt Latham (ML), Sarah Swift (SS) – Environment Agency (EA),
Paul Tame (PT) - NFU, Clare Sterling (CS) - Lincolnshire Wildlife Trust, Kelly Hewson-Fisher (KH),
Richard Reynolds (RR) – Anglian Water, Samantha Ireland (SI) - Internal Drainage Boards, Chris
Hayes (CH) – Sleaford Navigation Trust, Andy Greenwood (AG) – Slea RiverCare Group.
Apologies: Brian Balderson.
Actions in bold
FM Update
CPAF – outcome for the next round of funding is due on 22nd April. The LRT will keep everyone
informed. A bid was put in to restore 1.5km of the River Slea upstream of Sleaford.
Wonderful Witham film premieres were a success – this is now available online so please spread the
word. Main issues raised at each one were as follows:
Grantham – litter, invasives, and new housing development. Particularly the impact the housing
development is going to have on the water level in the river.
Boston – mainly attended by anglers so the main concerns were weed, litter, poaching, lack of fish
refuges and habitat, and a historic lack of communication from various organisations.
Sleaford – Flooding, invasives, litter, ownership of watercourses.
Lincoln – Development pressures, navigation, invasives, access, lack of information, lack of fish
refuge, litter, sewerage, management, weed.
DH and SI to send their mapping and GIS layers of ownership of watercourses to FM. DH also to
provide a table of contact details for the relevant watercourses.
Woolly Witham – Launched at The Collection in Lincoln on 28th March. This is now available to be
exhibited at events so please let FM know if you want to use it.
Urban Opportunities Studies (UOS) – Sleaford UOS is now complete. Final plan and maps available
on LRT website. An end of project meeting was held and the plan was well received by all
stakeholders. Contact FM if you have comments or are interested in any projects identified through
the plan.
Grantham UOS – This is now complete (DH passed around the UOS map). If anyone has any
comments on this please let DH know.
Lincoln UOS – Being led by the Canal and River Trust. Completed by Richard Glen Associates. The
area has been split into zones, each zone is to be developed. Richard is currently contacting potential
stakeholders.
ML praised the completion of 3 UOS in 1 year. DEFRA have said that we should link the priorities to
urban growth, adding biodiversity to development. The outputs of these studies should influence
planning – get developers to pay for it.
Riverfly – LRT are hosting training for Riverfly monitoring on 25th & 26th of July. This will be in the
Barlings Eau catchment. Please can all partners advertise for volunteers. 19 spaces are available so
please spread the word. FM to send details to all partners. CS – suggested putting an
advertisement in the Wild News bulletin. AG to spread the word at RiverCare events and online.
Rivercare – Grantham Rivercare would also like to tackle invasives. FM has been liaising with Rob
Pitkin from the EA to find up to date records and determine the source of Himalayan Balsam in order
to tackle it strategically.
Lincoln – FM is currently having talks with the council, Canal and Rivers Trust and any existing local
groups in order to set up an annual litter picking event. If anyone can support this event please
contact FM.
Boston – FM attended the Big Boston Clean Up. It was well attended with food provided by local
churches and cafes. Lots of community groups supporting and a real community spirit to the event.
LRT hope to emulate this in Lincoln with support.
Lower Witham: gabion fish refuges have been installed and data suggests that they have been a
success. The EA will be meeting soon to come to a decision as to where they stand with gabion
baskets in general as there has been some debate regarding permanent structures being installed in
the channel.
DH – the EA have also funded a fish refuge project at the Kyme Eau confluence with the Witham.
This will be monitored and reports will be circulated. Additionally, fish refuges have been installed
under boat moorings by the C&RT, which were designed by Reuben Page (LRT). The ARIS camera has
identified 20-30,000 roach fry. This was a good partnership project. FM asked about a press release,
DH is to talk to Lucie Hoelmer at the C&RT about this and is going to circulate the report.
Upper Witham tree plan – the EA are supporting a project that the LRT are completing based on the
Keeping Rivers Cool Project. This is a mapping exercise where areas of trees/no trees, low/high flood
risk areas and levels of land owner support will be mapped and priority areas for tree planting will be
identified. This is phase 1 of a longer term project within the catchment. If anyone has any data or
land owner details that they can share, please contact FM and get more details.
Lincolnshire Rivers Trust (LRT) – new trustee Terry Williams was introduced.
Mayfly in the classroom event in collaboration with the Wild Trout Trust and those working on the
Dunston beck restoration is going to be piloted by the LRT in the Witham catchment.
There is a new quarterly LRT newsletter available on our website which incorporates Witham
Partnership news too.
Environment Agency (EA) update:
ML - 50% of WFD delivery money from DEFRA is given to the EA nationally to deliver projects with
partners. Examples of this locally include the Riseholme project and Grange Farm on the Upper
Witham. The other 50% has gone directly to the partnerships in the form of the CPAF fund.
DEFRA have 5 corporate priorities – local and national databases have been merged to identify
priority WFD drivers which are
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Deteriorating waterbodies
Prioritised classification improvements
Highest society benefits (>10k population)
Protected areas – (SACs, SPAs etc.).
CABA priorities
All water bodies have been scored on these priorities and are being used as a funding strategy to
prioritise studies. ML to circulate the priority table by the end of May for the medium term plan.
EA have moved away from an approach of just looking at poor and bad water bodies as a focus for
WFD delivery. Instead we consider a broader range of criteria in identifying our priority water bodies
(see above) to ensure we achieve most benefit to the environment and society from our money and
resources.
AG – will priorities change come the election? ML – the table is designed to be a flexible tool so that
priorities can change.
EA vision – medium term plan should be completed by the end of next week. The long term plan is
to put a 5 year Environmental Plan business case to DEFRA. Basically explaining what we could
achieve with ‘X’ amount of money. The EA want to work with the partnership to put together this 5
year business case.
TW – we should concentrate on the areas prioritised by DEFRA, which we will know by the end of
May. Once these have been identified should we not then agree the 5 year plan?
The EA would like to involve the partnership in the formation of their medium term plan on projects
that help to deliver WFD. ML to send a template/guidance for all partners to complete regarding
their priorities before the end of May. ML to organise a meeting with partnership members to
discuss projects to put into a 5 year plan.
Anglian Water introductions – RR – The aim of the team is to put a face to the team for the farmers
and landowners to talk to so that when they think of Anglian Water they think of that person (e.g.
Kelly). Primary focus is drinking water quality and metaldehyde = main problem. Problems = lack of
local information. Anglian water want to work together with local farmers.
KH – Farming background in Lincolnshire. ADAS – Agricultural background. Farmers/agronomists =
priority. They need feedback from issues and how they can assist going forward.
The EA and AW held an initial meeting and have actions to follow up already. The primary purpose of
this meeting was to establish links between KH and EA Environment Officers across the Witham and
Ancholme. This is to help co-ordinate farm visits e.t.c in the most effective way.
Ideas were discussed to produce targeted leaflets to inform the agricultural sector on catchment
issues and also septic and oil tank leaflets. Where should we prioritise? The EA have funding for this
and are happy to support. An example from the Ribble Rivers Trust was passed around. FM to look
at Water Friendly Farming leaflet from the Welland catchment.
PT – What particular problems do we have in the catchment? They need to be relevant and not
general. Ideally the EA and AW should input specific problems in specific places and target areas. We
need to identify 3-4 relevant targets for specific areas e.g. weed = major local issue.
ML - We should prioritise the water bodies first, then the specific areas and then find out what the
local issues are.
PT – the Welland is a good example (understandably as it is a pilot catchment). They have identified
areas and provided funding and advice/guidance.
Next steps – septic and oil tank leaflets first (general leaflet) electronic.
DH – we can distribute through parish councils
FM – we need to prioritise areas based on data, specific areas to get feedback.
FM attended a conference and came across an example from the Mersey catchment where they
targeted areas that were an issue and used water quality testing to determine the type of
misconnections then spoke to individuals in the area. They also adapted a dolls house to show
misconnections. FM has been in contact with the catchment to get more information.
PT – there are generic misconnection leaflets already available.
DH and FM to present to trainee plumbers in the catchment on misconnections
The long term plan for the partnership will be based on the DEFRA 5 year business plan and priorities
identified. Is there anyone missing from the partnership? PT suggested we should invite the CLA. PT
to send FM details of someone to contact.
There is no official request from DEFRA to produce a catchment plan, however, the partnership feels
that one should be produced as a guidance document. This can be a high level plan with key issues,
evidence and maps, it doesn’t have to be a lengthy document. This should also include the Terms of
Reference.
Project details – we need to produce a table of our projects including costings so that they are ready
to go when funding becomes available. At the moment they are just aspirational. Partnership and EA
priorities will overlap.
The EA will need 20% partner contribution for all projects.
AOB – SS – RBMP response needed by Friday 10th April at 5pm (33 responses so far). Anglian Water
have responded. Additionally, there may be a page in the next round of RBMP for the Partnership to
complete. This will be by mid-July. SS to keep the LRT updated.
AG – needed to know incident line number. Trout has been identified in the Slea with a spinner in its
mouth.
DH – EA have a Riseholme budget for farm events so please let DH know if you would like the EA
to host any. EA can support with agricultural events and would welcome any ideas on locations
and particular issues that they could be used to target.
The next meeting will be the project creation meeting. ML to send out possible dates after he has
identified the water body priorities.
FM thanked all present for their time and input and closed the meeting.