Nene Rivers Trust
Rickileigh Edwards, Project Support Officer at the Nene Rivers Trust, outlines their projects in our area.
Introduction to the Nene Rivers Trust
Nene Rivers Trust, formerly River Nene Regional Park, is part of the national Rivers Trusts movement across the UK and Ireland. Together we work to mitigate the impacts of climate change and pollution, create new habitats, manage and monitor soil health, improve water quality and help build resilience in our communities.
As part of this network, we work alongside other trusts to make our shared vision a reality: wild, healthy, natural rivers, valued by all.
Working with our many partners, the projects we deliver help to build the connections between the local communities and the river landscape.
Nene Rivers Trust projects:
RAIN
The RAIN project (Resilience and Innovation Northants) will be working with communities in two river catchments: Harpers Brook in North Northamptonshire, and Wootton Brook in West Northamptonshire. We will be working with these communities to trial flood resilience measures at three different scales: across the catchment, within the community, and at individual property level.
The overall aim of the project is to engage with landowners and farmers, communities and individuals throughout these two catchments, to test new approaches to improving flood resilience. As a funded innovation project, we will be evaluating how effectively these measures work in combination with each other.
Nene Valley Catchment Partnership
The Nene Valley Catchment Partnership is a member of the Catchment Based Approach. This partnership consists of many organisations from all over the Nene Valley, and is a space that facilitates the co-ordinated efficient delivery of river improvement projects while supporting cross-boundary working. The Partnership contributes to the development and improvement of green infrastructure links throughout Catchment, providing a mechanism to ‘pool’ funding to deliver multi-functional projects, and informing the development of suitable planning policy.
Rockingham Forest ‘Building the Links’
The National Lottery Heritage Fund are funding this partnership project to link people to the habitats and wildlife of Rockingham Forest. A wide range of activities will engage people, from guided walks to nature workshops, enabling participants to gain more identification skills and engage in wildlife recording. Other workshops provide an introduction to practical woodland management such as coppicing and charcoal making.
The project is also promoting woodland education with an extension of the RFS Teaching Trees programme enabling local schools to take part in educational visits.
Through cooperation with local landowners, the project is initiating discussions to build towards better management and an extension of the range of wildlife habitats that are distinctive and important in the area, making links between hotspots with wildlife corridors.
River Ise Partnership:
An ambitious, large-scale programme to enhance the quality of the Valley’s natural environment, strengthen its natural capital and develop its ecosystem services.
The project aims to develop a River Ise Linear Park that creates links and pathways for people and wildlife, and augments connectivity from Wellingborough through Kettering and to Corby, seeking opportunities to develop sustainable tourism that creates socioeconomic benefits for communities through employment and income-earning opportunities. Also focussing on mitigating and facilitating adaptation to climate change, and contributing to natural flood management.
You can find out more at www.neneriverstrust.org