Party political differences will be put to one side this week with the visit of Conservative Shadow Fisheries Minister Richard Benyon and the Reading West MP and Labour’s angling spokesman, Martin Salter to the Benham Estate in Mr Benyon’s Newbury constituency. The MPs, who are both members of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Angling will be inspecting important river habitat restoration schemes to the River Kennet at Benham Park which the Estate are carrying out in partnership with Natural England.
Mr Benyon will also be trying his hand at coarse fishing under the guidance of Martin Salter MP and Dr Alan Butterworth, former fisheries manager for the Environment Agency and now a board member of the Angling Trust – the new governing body for angling. At the end of the day Dr Butterworth will brief the MPs on the current issues facing angling and fisheries.
In Benham Park, the course of the river was significantly altered when Capability Brown laid down the existing parkland and in addition to this, a number of tributaries have been dug, some by French prisoners of war during the Napoleonic Wars, so as to drain the land. The scheme has reinstated previously abandoned tributaries, which once filled with water, become a haven for fish, mammals, invertebrates and birds.
The most significant scheme in Benham Park will be the reinstatement of what is believed to have been the former channel of the River Kennet. The bed of the former stretch of main river was identified by way of taking core samples so as to locate the gravel seam. Historic maps further assisted in identifying its location.
Benham Estate manager Jonathan Russell said:-
“We are very much looking forward to the visit of our local MPs Richard Benyon and Martin Salter and to showing them the work we are doing to improve the wildlife and aquatic habitat on our stretch of the Kennet. The projects in Benham Park will be completed by spring 2010 with the works upstream near Kintbury by September 2010. We are very grateful for the support and assistance of Natural England who administer the environmental schemes on the Estate. The projects have been extremely important to the Estate both for historic reasons and for the significant benefits that they will create in terms of wildlife habitat.”
Martin Salter said:-
“Certain things are above party politics and Richard and I both share a love of the River Kennet and of angling. There is no doubt that Richard could teach me a thing or two about how to catch a trout or a salmon, and I’m looking forward to showing him, under the expert guidance of star angler Martin Bowler how us coarse fisherman go about catching our quarry. I’m also keen to see first hand the excellent work that the Benham Estate is doing to improve spawning grounds and create wildlife havens. I just wish more of these works could take place further down the Kennet valley where the fishery is in not such a good shape.”
Shadow Fisheries Minister and Newbury MP Richard Benyon added:-
“”I am looking forward to fishing the Kennet with Martin Salter and to hearing about the work of the Angling Trust. Whilst I am now a clumsy fly fisherman, as a boy my passion was fishing for tench and pike. More importantly, I will be seeing at first hand what is being done to protect and improve the River Kennet, one of the most precious ecosystems in the South of England.”
