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Active Project List

Biodiversity of the River Rea

The one outstanding landowner had been contacted early in the New Year concerning his commitment to a Letter of Agreement. This has not been forthcoming due to the press of work but has agreed, following the submission of requested data (now complete) and the development of a Letter of Agreement, to again address this issue. For your info a short presentation given last year to the CM Breakfast Club on ‘Salmon in the Rea’ is still available for anyone interested. This may be added in the near future to our webpage – see below.

CCEF website

The Cleobury Country website has a ‘Societies & Clubs’ section on its ‘Tourism’ page. For a cost of £20/year the CCEF has set-up its own webpage which can be accessed by going into www.cleoburycountry.com , choosing the ‘Tourism’ page, then scroll down the left hand side of the page to ‘Societies & Clubs’ which when activated gives a list, choose ‘Cleobury Country Environment Forum’ and this will take you in directly to our webpage. An alternative route is to simply activate utilising the following hypertext link: http://pages.cleoburycountry.com/cmef The webpage is theoretically limitless. Members are invited to participate. Send any ‘input’ to me and I will see it gets on the ‘page’. The next addition will be an abbreviated version of this summary.

Low Carbon Communities Initiative (LCCI)

This is now into its final year. Recent highlights include a Low Carbon Technology Fair held in mid-April which was well attended and should result in a number of new initiatives on both the business and home side. One exhibitor of particular interest was Paul Guest who has set-up a cooking oil based bio-diesel operation at Meaton Farm near Kinlet (first right hand turn at top of Kinlet bank). Members are invited to use this facility. Call ahead (07814 919977) to book a place. Chris Dimond hasn’t refilled his tank since his visit in April! ‘Keep Shropshire Warm’ (www.keepshropshirewarm.org) launched early in the year is trying to contact every household re heating and grants opportunities – if over 70 insulation can be done for free. Several meetings have been held with MEA to co-ordinate activities and generate feedback. So far we have achieved about 50% of our carbon savings target. To date reception has been mixed. There seem to be few people who doubt the impact of climate change – what is debateable is its timing and the ‘pain threshold’ where the general public will take action still seems in the distant future though the recent accelerated rate of petrol increases and their ‘add-on’ effect with electricity and heating costs may yet be the catalyst, especially when people start to fill their heating oil tanks for the winter (currently 2X last year and may rise to 3-4X by December). Certainly there are to date few government incentives with the ‘mixed blessing’ of a focus on environment taxes (e.g. airport carbon tax, landfill tax) which plough little monies back into environment initiatives.

Wind turbine at CM Primary

Chris Dimond reports: After some two years of trying to appropriate funding to cover the costs of the small scale wind turbine (two lengthy attempts failed and one competition entry failed because of no suitable site for a 15 metre mast) funds have now been obtained locally from the Opportunity Fund. Despite this, 30% funding was also available through Low Carbon Build Programme Phase 2, a programme designed for public buildings and not for profit companies. It was, therefore, decided to also attempt to get this funding as the Windsave Turbine is one of the designated products listed on the BRE website. However, the Framework supplier for this product is British Gas and they will not process the application because they do not believe that the Turbine shows significant benefits. Hence an impasse with British Gas, Windsave and BRE all telling us different things.

SCRL (formerly SCRN)

The SCRL continues to establish a good relationship with the SWP (Shropshire Waste Partnership) who see us as the recognised community link across the county. To date funding has been obtained for a consultant (Phil Stedman, formerly with the North Shropshire Furniture Scheme) to develop a membership database, website and newsletter. The SWP have also released funds to support local area initiatives. For CCEF this will be the joint venture with Ludlow21 and Church Stretton on biobags (see Cleobury Country ban the bag above).This has also facilitated local area contacts with the new countywide waste contractor, Veolia – particularly with respect to the CM bring bank site (see Bring Banks above) The South Shropshire and Oswestry Furniture Schemes (both as SCRL members) have been successful in negotiating a bulky waste proposal with Veolia – a three month trial in South Shropshire commenced in mid-April.

The Green Event 2008

Following the success of Green Event 2007, CCEF will be managing Green Event 2008 which will be held in the 1st week of September (1-7) with the following planned activities:

• Fairtrade weekend
• Dog fouling day
• Biodegradable bag launch
• Tetrapak seminar
• Sewage works open day
• Environmental Champions day
• Film night
• Light Fantastic event

Members are invited to participate and suggest other ‘events’. Building on our experience in 2007 a ‘short list’ of environmental champions has been developed – further nominations are requested – contact Bill Duley for further information.

CCC (formerly BCERC)

The community business centre (Business Community Education Resource Centre [BCERC] now re-named the Cleobury Country Centre [CCC])) located on the LCS grounds (at the old swimming pool site [now paved over]) has successfully obtained planning permission. Tenders have been submitted by a number of contractors – to date these are significantly higher than the original estimated cost of the building and are being evaluated with AWM assistance. We remain confident that monies will be made available to cover this revised estimate. One significant recent development is the decision to incorporate the town library into the building. This proposal has been met with a very positive response by the community as it will result in a significantly larger and more comprehensive facility, centrally located with good parking facilities. The intention is for the building to be a demonstrator project for the LCCI. To this end work has commenced on obtaining the BREEAM standard of excellence (environment). This entails the involvement of a qualified assessor from the start of the project to ensure the Standard’s requirements are met and validated (visit the BREEAM website http://www.breeam.org/ ). To meet this a number of environmental innovations are proposed for the building: sedum roof, PV panels, ground source heat pump, passive ventilation, sustainable construction materials, high insulation standard, services control system with high quality feedback, minimum footprint, etc…Currently it looks like the structure (due to its multi-function facilities) will fall within the BESPOKE category requiring a customised assessment. Work will hopefully start on the site this summer with completion and opening by early spring ‘09.

Bill Duley June 15th, 2008

don’t forget… ‘Small changes can make a difference’

Salmon in the Rea

Breakfast Club Presentation (June 12th, 2007)

‘Salmon in the Rea’ is a topic which up to a few years ago would have been inconceivable for this area. However, before I go into the detail of this I should like to give some background on the complex life of salmon.

Our focus here is the Atlantic salmon which spawns in freshwater and feeds and grows at sea (saltwater). The normal spawning season is from autumn through to winter. Atlantic salmon, unlike Pacific, are unique in that they can spawn more than once: 20-40% return to the sea from spawning and 3-6% return to spawn a second time.

Eggs are buried in a ‘redd’ (gravel bed river substrate) which is excavated by the salmon and covered by materials dug out during the construction of further spawning ‘redds’ upstream. Females will then return downstream while males will remain for further spawning.

The ‘redds’ are important in construction (small sized gravel, stable construction. Note that as the salmon go through their further stages of development they require progressively larger gravels) with egg hatching being very temperature dependant: 3C=145 days, 11C=40 days. Shading can assist in keeping water temps low but also assists in summer when lower flows must be kept below 25C (max habitation temperature). The alevins once hatched in early spring stay within the ‘redd’ utilising the yoke sac as food until they emerge as fry. Ideal conditions require good water flow through the gravel with relatively little fine matter (silt).

Fry evolve to parr by the end of the first summer. Parr thrive on such aquatic wildlife as the invertebrate larvae of mayfly, stonefly and caddis.

The salmon remain at the parr stage for up to 4 years (normally 2) when they reach 100-120 mm (4-5 inches) in length. A proportion of the parr can become sexually active before the end of this stage and are capable of fertilising the eggs of adult females returning upstream. This can have a significant negative genetic impact on offspring fertilised in this way.

Parr evolve to smolt which are then ready to migrate to the sea. Smolts are characterised by their ‘silvery’ appearance and migrate to the sea from April to June.

Growth is rapid in the sea (feed on capelin, sandeels, crustacea) and return time can very from one winter (returning salmon then defined as grilse) to four (MSW [multi-sea-winter] salmon). Since the early 1960s the proportion of grilse has risen significantly. Grilse are more valued by anglers and tend to run in the spring, thereby giving a longer fishing season but lack size (less eggs) and the robustness of the more mature MSW fish plus the possibility of reduced gene pool development (not fully validated).

Salmon generally return to their river of origin and often to the same area in the river bed where they were born. The imprint process is thought to originate during smolt migration and may be related to a ‘smell’ process. This homing has led to genetically distinct sub-populations even within the same catchment area. This is an important point to note when artificially stocking new areas such as the Rea.

Stocking is done normally at the fry stage utilising fish which have originated as close to the new area as possible. In the case of the Rea these would come from the Teme. The Environment Agency has designated for sometime the Rea as within the salmon catchment area. As a consequence, salmon stocking has taken place where no obstructions occur (OK upstream to Tetsill weir), as recently as 2003/04 in Mill Brook.

Salmon migrating upstream have been seen at the Newnham Bridge fish pass (the only one on the Rea – installed in the early 1990s) as recently as December ’06. It is believed that several dozen pairs of salmon spawn each year in the lower reaches of the Rea.

Minor obstructions are not a problem for migrating salmon as long as there is sufficient ‘pool depth’ in front of the barrier (normally a weir) to allow the fish sufficient leap force or momentum. They can jump up to 3m or 10 ft high per step.

In the case of the Rea, weirs at Tetsill (Neen Sollars), Lower Forge (Cleobury Mortimer) and Prescott Mill (Stottesdon) present obstructions which require the installation of fish passes. The latter area is fairly minor in height and the subject of some debate but has the potential of opening the gravel bed streams near Stottesdon in the upper reaches of the Rea. These ideal spawning grounds, if developed, could significantly increase the salmon population potential for the river.

Why the Rea? The salmon population in the UK has been in decline for a number of years. This is thought to be due to a number of factors:

• on the salt water side: intensive over fishing by trawlers, change in ocean habitat conditions (climate change effect), salmon accidentally caught in fish nets, salmon farming (pollution plus escape of ‘farm’ fish weakens the gene pool), etc …
• on the fresh water side: pollution, water temperature increase (25C max.), siltation loading and flow obstructions (e.g., the River Tweed on the Borders has over 100 weirs)

Overall the true reason is not well understood, possibly a synergy of many factors (unmeasured, undefined parameters, especially with respect to what happens in the sea where our comprehensive knowledge equates to one cubic mile of this vast resource). However, fresh water systems can be managed utilising Salmon Action Plans developed by the Environment Agency in conjunction with such legislation as the Water Framework Directive. This takes time and is difficult to enforce but eventually will have a profoundly positive effect on all UK salmon rivers, possibly by 2020/30.

The Rea feeds into the Teme which feeds into the Severs which is a major salmon river. Plans are in place for these main rivers. In the case of the Teme, important work in recent years has been undertaken at and upstream of Ludlow including such tributaries as the Onny and Corve. The Rea is the most significant input point between Ludlow and the Teme discharge to the Severn at Worcester.

The Rea therefore can have a part to play in the salmon redevelopment of the lower Teme. Generally stable gravel beds and pools of the required variety plus biological conditions (low industrial loading, good quality STW at Cleobury Mortimer [shortly to be upgraded], appearance of otters near Mawley Hall) make the Rea favourable for salmon generation: need fish passes as designated above plus, in conjunction with this and into the longer term, work to reduce siltation (primarily a function of bank erosion from pasture farming methods) and better tree management (too many shaded areas which lead, in places, to an essentially sterile river bed). Some concern has been expressed about the compatibility of the existing brown trout population and the introduction of salmon. Independent studies (most recently carried out on the Teme) show that these species generally compliment one another by utilising different areas of the river bed and, in the rare instances where there is competition, trout will predominate. Furthermore, the proposed upgrade programme for the river will only have positive benefits for the trout population which is currently on the decrease (possibly due to over fishing and poor spawning conditions).

There is no reason to believe that the Rea, before the days of watermills (possibly as long as 500 years ago) and, more recently, intensive farming (particularly pasture), was not a viable salmon river though, of course, no one within living memory can recall this – there are some isolated reports of salmon at the bottom of the Lower Forge (Mawley Hall) as recently as the early 1950s. The intention of the salmon restoration programme will be to bring this ‘historic link into the present’.

It should be noted that initially the river will be developed as a ‘hatchery’ area with fishing severely restricted but as the various parts of the salmon life cycle stabilise in the river system, some fishing may be ‘permitted’, particularly in the lower reaches between Mawley Hall and Newnham Bridge. It will be sometime before we see Rea salmon in the shops or featured on the local eatery menu. There currently exists among the salmon fisherman of the British Isles, a ‘catch and release’ programme which sees almost 50% of the salmon caught and released. Nevertheless as a ‘spawning’ river, the Rea should have considerable tourist potential as the developing salmon population will have high visibility. Remember that salmon leave the river only at the smolt stage and hence spend 2-4 years in this fresh water environment.

To make this project sustainable we need to form a ‘River Rea Trust’ (similar structure to the recently formed Cleobury Country Limited). Anyone interested in joining or finding out more about our salmon project can contact me (01299 270562 or whdpathways@btopenworld.com ). Most of the information covered above is available and complimented by a recent EC publication entitled ‘Ecology of the Atlantic Salmon’ (Natura 2000 series, published 2003, ISBN 185716 713 9) which can be downloaded from the website: www.riverlife.org.uk

Aim and Guidelines

The aim of the Cleobury Country Environment Forum (CCEF) is to examine the impact which Cleobury Country has on the environment and determine the best ways and means to control this so that the rich and diverse heritage of this land is passed onto succeeding generations.

This is accomplished utilising the following guidelines:

• Define key environmental inputs and outputs.
• Analyse the current situation.
• Encourage public involvement.
• Develop both short and long term control strategies.
• Utilise available technical, educational, social and economic tools to meet these ends.
• Relate experience gained to the nationwide programme of environment management.
• View environmental improvement as a never ending process.

The CCEF works closely with both local government (parish, district and county) and associations (Cleobury Country Ltd, Friends of St. Mary’s, etc…) as well as both local secondary and primary schools and any other local organisation or group which shares the CCEF’s aim.

Questions & Answers

What is the Cleobury Country Environment Forum?

In response to the United Nations’ Agenda 21 sustainable development programme local environmental initiatives have been developing across the UK with the nearest group in Ludlow (Ludlow 21). The CCEF is intended as Cleobury Mortimer’s Local Agenda 21 group. It will look at the ecological imprint which Cleobury Mortimer and the surrounding area makes on the countryside and examine ways to control this impact.

Why isn’t the group called Cleobury 21?

The designation Cleobury Country Environment Forum is not carved in stone and members may indeed change its name. It was felt that utilising ‘CCEF’ gave perhaps a broader, more flexible interpretation to the Agenda 21 remit as well as the fact that few people relate instinctively to the term Agenda 21. Furthermore, the reference to ‘forum’ implies a group focused on active participatory discussion within the community which the CCEF will do its best to encourage with an open meeting format.

What do you see as CCEF’s main activity?

To analyse Cleobury Mortimer’s environmental impact and look at how this can be best managed. This will involve the development of specific projects (suggestions invited) focusing on such areas as refuse management (household and commercial), agricultural and garden waste handling possibly linked with energy recovery, expansion of material recovery schemes (i.e., plastics, metals, cardboard), transport, effective sewage treatment, sustainable drainage, etc…

Once conclusions are reached, how will actions be implemented?

It would be the intention of the CCEF to act as a focal point in the development of practical solutions. For example, about 5 tonnes/month (guesstimate only!) of corrugated cardboard is generated as commercial waste in Cleobury. This currently goes to landfill. It should be possible to link this up with a paper recover scheme. To resolve this, the CCEF needs to quantify this waste problem, supply solution(s) to any quality inconsistencies and rationalise transport ultimately leading, hopefully, to a periodic pickup of all waste cardboard as feedstock for a UK paper mill. As a further example, the CCEF might work with the Parish Council to encourage future local housing development along environmentally sustainable lines utilising latest energy conservation technology, use of renewable materials, permeable surface drainage/soak ways, brown field siting and respect for greenbelt integrity.

In order to further its effectiveness would the CCEF seek an alliance with such environmental groups as Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth?

The CCEF does not see environmental activity as a separate human function – rather the environment exists, and has always existed as a common thread through everything we do. Some people may simply have a greater awareness of this than others. Such organisations as Greenpeace, etc… have a high environmental profile and, where applicable, their resources will be utilised, but these NGOs deal with issues on a national/global level and tend to promulgate an environmentally focused lifestyle. The CCEF feels that working within the existing community is the most realistic way forward. By highlighting environmental concerns and potential solutions the CCEF would endeavour to increase the environmental awareness of everyone.

Could you give an example of how this might be achieved?

Yes. Let’s examine the ‘Tidy Britain’ campaign. There have been countless local and national initiatives for over the last 50 years but none of these have had a permanent effect – litter remains, aside from the occasional ‘blitz’, an ongoing unsightly problem. The CCEF believes that this can only be turned around by raising people’s overall appreciation of the need for managing our rubbish - by applying first, the concept of reuse, then everything else divided between kerbside recycle and the refuse bin. Just as we have instinctively learned to fasten our seatbelt whenever we are in a car, so also can a better standard of handling discarded materials be acquired.

Do you really think the CCEF will succeed where others have had little affect?

The CCEF opens it doors to everyone in the community to participate in discussions and the development of solutions. It will establish links with key organisations such as the Parish Council and Chamber of Trade to encourage an atmosphere of ‘working together’ for the long term environmental welfare of the area. It will judge its success on the extent to which the environment is elevated as a priority in people’s awareness from something that is ‘someone else’s problem’ or can be tackled ‘when we have more time’ to where it becomes a more integral part of everyone’s lifestyle.

Why is the CCEF being established today? Is their a real need for such an organisation? Cleobury Mortimer already has a large number of clubs and associations – do we really need to have another one?

The environment has become increasingly important over the last 15-20 years. As our living standards continue to improve and our lifestyle becomes more sophisticated, the environmental implications of this have to be addressed both because of their potential long term effect on the countryside as well the utilising of resources which now have a finite limit. No group within Cleobury Mortimer currently addresses this important activity or even seriously addresses such interrelated functions as conservation and wildlife. The CCEF is being formed out of a concern by a number of members in the community that our environmental burden must be analysed and solutions sought if, in the long term, Cleobury Mortimer, and many communities like it are to retain the uniqueness of their cultural and natural history heritage for future generations.

Executive

• Chair - Bill Duley
• Secretary - Dr. Chris Dimond
• Treasurer - Philip Jones

Membership - 23

New members are always welcome. The group (established in 2002) meets quarterly with an AGM.

Have you heard about our recent Green Event 2008 (September 1-7)? See details of the Green Event 2008 on the Active Projects List above. A special thanks to all those who attended.

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For membership detail contact Bill Duley (whdpathways [at] btopenworld.com)

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