The poor river Ingrebourne

[tiddlertamer]

I fished the river Ingrebourne in Ingrebourne Valley park on the Essex/greater London borders earlier today.

 

It’s a small river which I fished for the first time this winter. The first time I fished it I observed a mix of shallows and deeper pools with a great deal of vegetation on its banks. It contained quite a few chubby looking spots and seemed like an interesting river to get to know and one which I’d be spending a lot more time exploring.

 

Today I was in for a shock. The river banks had clearly paid host to some pretty beefy JCBs and heavy duty digging gear which had carved their way around the park. Vast amounts of silt have been carved out of the river and deposited along the banks. To such an extent that plastic fences had been erected next to part of the river while signs warned the unheedy of the dangers of walking over this mud.

 

Nearly all the vegetation has been stripped away from the banks. The river banks now look fairly uniform and any features on the river bed seem to have been stripped away.

 

I guess this is some attempt to improve river flow/prevent flooding but it seems to have ripped the heart out of this little river.

 

I looked online and discovered something called the East London Green Grid Vision which talks about ‘riverine improvements’ on the river Ingrebourne.

Am I being overly pessimistic? Has the river’s habitat been destroyed or will this work, once nature has had time to play its role, and the vegetation grown back, be soon a thriving fishery. Perhaps, its long been a struggling river and needed some work to help desilt it...

 

I can’t help but think it’s been disastrous for the existing fish stocks...

Edited March 8, 2011 by tiddlertamer

[Rusty]

Arbocop's the man for this one really but my (uninformed) view is that the river will look like disaster zone whilst the works are being carried out, the same thing happened on a small river local to me 18 months ago and it's just starting to regain its character now.

 

It will probably be a different river when it matures but that’s the intention, just hope that the works have been thought through and have been well executed. The fish will have swum off before being clobbered by a JCB and will return once (if) they’re happy with the environment. The construction phase always looks brutal, what’s important is what they’re trying to achieve.

[Steve Walker]

Sounds as if it might be an attempt to improve gravelly spawning habitat for species like barbel and trout by removing silt.

[Ken L]

Sounds like yet another example of EA vandalism to me.

The only "improvements" that they're interested in are those that might reduce their risk of litigation in the event of flooding and if that means digging out fish habitat and removal of bankside trees (allowing easy access to cormerants when the local stillwaters freeze over) then that's what they will do.

The kicker is, they'll use your licence fee to pay for it......

[Anderoo]

They've been busy along my bit of the Thames too, but the work has been very sympathetic and it hasn't altered the character of the river. I guess it's all a lot more noticable on a little stream.

 

I hope it works out for the best TT, but I can imagine how you feel.

[Steve Walker]

I've found in the past that you can usually get information from the EA fisheries people about what they are doing reasonably easily.

 

Worth giving them a ring and explaining that you want to find out about the works and what objectives they have;

 

http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/contactus/default.aspx