Loadpit Beck gets some Love

John Franklin, our Better Becks Officer, has been working in Loadpit Beck facilitating the weir removal there.

What was the problem?

During walkovers as part of phase 1 of the ‘Better Becks’ Project, dozens of barriers to fish passage were identified within tributaries of the Middle Aire Catchment. On Loadpit Beck, a concrete ‘apron’ spanning the whole channel width was found. Installed as a reasonably over-engineered scour protection structure for the adjacent surface water outfall, this ‘apron’ has been stopping fish from progressing upstream to access good quality riparian habitat. The barrier was doing this in two ways, by creating an artificial drop in height in the channel, which many fish are unable to swim up, and by creating conditions for thin, laminar flow (like a sheet), which is challenging to swim up, as the water speed is increased, with little opportunities for rest.

Phase 2 of the Better Becks project is all about addressing the problems found. The Fisheries Improvement Program, where funds are raised from angler’s rod licenses, was a great opportunity to cover the cost of this removal, as improving fish passage in Loadpit Beck would also help support fish populations in the fishable waters of the River Aire, 400m downstream.

…and the solution?

The works themselves, with permissions and support from Bradford Council and local landowners, were undertaken in August 2024 with Prof. Jonny Grey of the Wild Trout Trust being brought in as the principal contractor, alongside operational support from Ian and Pat from Atkinson Surfacing. Using handheld machinery, a new channel was cut into the right-hand half of the concrete apron. This was to enable retention of the scour-protecting function of the apron on the left side of the channel, below the outfall. Rather than cutting down to the channel bed, the material was cut away to retain a naturalistic channel within the concrete, to ensure fish passage, whilst also avoiding the risk of the channel scouring out in future. Sediment management was used downstream of the works to minimise fine concrete dust and silt mobilisation becoming an issue for aquatic organisms below the works.

As soon as the concrete breaker was lifted out of the water and the generator turned off, we all watched a Bullhead fish making the first journey up and above the barrier, enjoying the restful riffles of the new passable channel.

Monitoring the impact

Downstream of Loadpit Beck ART Volunteer Carolyn Robinson, who monitors river flies, says:

‘Riverfly Monitoring is a Citizen Science project that enables volunteers to gather information about the water quality of the River Aire and its tributaries. Following training and assessment, I was paired with another volunteer and together we monitored a site on Loadpit Beck that runs through Trench Meadows.

Once a month we ‘kick sample’ the site wearing wellies and using a standard net for 3 minutes, then check under large stones for 1 minute, ensuring comparable samples are taken over time. The sample is rinsed to remove unwanted debris, poured into a large tray and examined. We are looking for eight pollution-sensitive species of invertebrates that should be present in a healthy river. They are then transferred to an 8-segmented tray for counting, where we looking for 2 types of caddis flies, 4 types of up-wing flies, stoneflies, and freshwater shrimp. We also note the presence of other insects, snails or fish in the sample as well as any creatures that survive in polluted water eg leeches.

The number of each species is counted and allocated a score e.g. 1-9=1 point, 10-99=2 points, 100-999=3 points. At Trench Meadows our score has been between 8 and 14 points, we have identified all 8 target species, but not all on the same occasion. We are allocated a Trigger Level, and if our score falls below this there has possibly been a pollution event. We will check upstream of the site to look for any obvious pollution, changes in water colour etc and re-sample. If pollution is found or the score is still below the Trigger Level, the coordinator and local ecology contact are informed. Thankfully that has not happened at Trench Meadows, and it continues to be a healthy site.’

River Worth Weir Walkers

Chellow Dene resurrected

The Aire Rivers Trust presents the Chellow Dene Wetland Project! The Chellow Dene Wetland is a small green space in Chellow Dene, Bradford, tucked away behind several houses. Chellow Dene Beck runs through the site, and this wetland acts as its floodplain in high rainfall. The Aire Rivers Trust and partners have transformed the site by implementing changes to re-naturalise the beck.

The Changes

The old design for the Chellow Dene Wetlands included a few cells of reedbeds that would filter water from the beck and act as flood storage for high rainfall events. These reedbeds had since silted up, meaning they no longer held floodwater, so they would not have mitigated any damage in the event of a flood. There was also a small weir that was blocking fish passage up and down the stream. The Aire Rivers Trust implemented features such as a log mattress and leaky dams, which will help to re-naturalize the beck, connect the beck back to its floodplain, and slow the flow of water. A weir bypass was also built around the weir to allow fish to move freely along Chellow Dene Beck.

A Space for Wildlife and the Community

Chellow Dene Wetland is an excellent asset to Bradford, as it provides a diversity of habitats for wildlife, helps mitigate damage in local flooding events, and provides amenity space for the local community. The Aire Rivers Trust and the Friends of Bradford Beck have hosted volunteer events at the wetlands with groups like the Scouts to do conservation work, including tree planting, Himalayan balsam pulling, and litter-picking. Many people have since walked through the Chellow Dene Wetlands and commented that the work has greatly improved the site!

Check out the video to learn more about the project! The Chellow Dene Wetland Project – YouTube

Find out more about the work the Aire Rivers Trust does at our website – Home – Aire Rivers Trust

On 18th September, a small but select group gathered for the Offical Opening of the new wetland area. Representatives from our funders were there, and the odd passer by was treated to an explanation of what we were doing and why we bothered.

Partners and Funders

The Chellow Dene Wetland Project is funded by the Environment Agency, the West Yorkshire Combined Authority, and Britvic. Britvic’s funding is part of a partnership with The Rivers Trust to care for water resources and nature in the areas they operate. This project is part of the Environment Agency’s Water Environment Improvement Fund. The changes made were designed by Wetland Engineering and implemented by Conservefor. The Friends of Bradford Becks have provided great support and expertise to the project.

Ellie’s Weir…ed Blog

In this post our GIS whizz Ellie Spilsbury outlines some of the work we have been doing to identify ways to improve the sustainability of the fisheries in our rivers and hopefully aid the return of salmon for the first time since the Industrial Revolution.

*Look closely and you will see hundreds of Minnows collecting at the bottom of this weir, unable to ascend. See the area in the water that looks dark brown; they are Minnows.*

Visit each of the three sections for more detail:

A familiar Story

Data analysis with a Salmon Splash of professional opinion

(Tr)outcomes expected

A familar story

Once upon a time, our River Aire had the highest Salmon population of any Yorkshire river. Then came the Industrial Revolution, which saw the wool and fabric industry boom throughout Yorkshire. Mills were constructed accompanied by weirs to harness our river’s energy. Although the mills are now closed and are becoming swanky new flats, the weirs often remain, isolating ecosystems that lie between them. Weirs disrupt the natural transport of sediment downstream, causing a build-up of silt and gravel behind the weir, which is detrimental to the habitat of spawning fish. Since 2011, one of the Aire River Trust’s goals has been to increase the connectivity of our river and its tributaries by removing or re-configuring weirs to allow fish passage. Following earlier work to install fish passes through and downstream of Leeds, significant steps towards this goal were made in 2022 with the successful construction of four fish passes as part of the DNAire project.

When we see water flowing over weirs, creating the sounds of waterfalls and visually pleasing white waters, it is easy to forget their man-made heritage and artificiality. It is hard to imagine seeing through the eyes of a migrating trout or salmon; every cell in its body instinctively directing it upstream to spawn, using both the stars and the earth’s magnetic field for navigation and then facing an unpassable wall of Yorkshire-dressed stone. It is often not just the height of the weir that presents the issue but the combination of weir height and the shallow depth of the concrete sill below the weir. The height at which salmon and trout jump is directly affected by the relative depth of the water at the foot of the barrier and the “hydraulic jump,” which boosts their leap.

The Environment Agency (EA) has identified around four hundred river obstacles within the Aire Catchment. However, we believe there to be many more. For example, the EA recorded two barriers to fish passage on Pitty Beck, yet on our Bradford Becks Walkovers, we found 11. This pattern is most likely repeated on each beck. Currently, tackling the removal of every weir in the catchment is unattainable. So, how did we prioritise them into a workable top twenty?

Data analysis with a Salmon splash of professional opinion

With help from The Rivers Trust, we are the first regional rivers trust to code an ArcGIS tool to accurately calculate the length of a river (including tributaries and forks) that would be opened and re-connected by the removal of every mapped weir in the Aire Catchment. Alongside this, we analysed ecological assessment data, invertebrate biodiversity, local community data (including deprivation), and weir visibility to the public. We assigned a score to each outcome and designed a weighted decision-making matrix that identified the weirs that scored the most highly. The data only tells us half the story, so we took our results to our expert team and discussed those weirs for which a solution in the short(ish) term might be feasible.

Once we had twenty feasible weirs, it was time to ground truth our ideas. The purpose of site visits is to add or, more often, diminish our confidence in the feasibility of the weir so that we only carry the most achievable sites to the next stage. We evaluated the weirs’ condition, site access, utility services or abstraction points, and landowner engagement by photographing and recording the area, our thoughts, and encounters.

The most surprising discovery for me was the actual size of a weir. After months of viewing photographs without visual perspective, weirs can appear to be half the scale of the real-life structure. Take a moment to analyse this photo: how tall do you believe it to be? See the very bottom of the blog for the upside-down answer.

(Tr)outcomes

We are fast approaching the end of the site visits and write-up stage. It is time to narrow our shortlist of twenty weirs down to four. So, it will be back around the table for our professionals to decide on the four “leak” proof projects to invest in. These four weirs will be subject to a comprehensive feasibility study and design process. I hope my next blog post will include more designs, machinery, hard hats and re-naturalised rivers.

River Worth Improvement Plan

How Fish Passes Work

As we come to the end of Developing the Natural Aire, SImon Watts explains why building fish passes matters.

All fish need to move to feed, breed and shelter. Even fish who spend their whole lives in the river can travel considerable distances looking for the ideal spot. Barbel have home ranges up to fifteen miles. Many freshwater fish migrate much, much further. For migratory species, like Atlantic salmon and the European eel, access to the sea is essential. The Industrial Revolution has left us with a fragmented river. Weirs built to harness the power of water for mills, factories and for navigation, block the way. Fish trapped in their sections are vulnerable to pollution or predation. And species like Atlantic salmon trying to return to our cleaner rivers cannot reach spawning ground in the shallow headwaters.

Why Do We Need Them

Whilst trout and Atlantic salmon can sometimes be seen leaping up waterfalls, weirs present a unique challenge. They are often long and steep. Their surface is smooth with little variation in the flow of water. The deep pools found at the base of waterfalls which fish can leap from are replaced by shallow aprons of concrete and stone. Many coarse fish species cannot jump obstacles.
The Aire Rivers Trust works with partners such as the Environment Agency and landowners to overcome these obstacles. The ideal solution is weir removal which restores natural river habitat (returning the artificial ponded section upstream back to a more natural system). But in some locations this proves impossible. Weirs form part of the urban fabric of our landscape. Some are valued for their heritage or for their amenity value. Buildings are built close to them and complicate their removal.

How Do They Work

Yorkshire Water explains why we need them and how fish passes work

Mid construction footage of the new fish pass at Kirkstall Abbey Weir as part of our Developing the Natural Aire project

An explanation of how an eel pass works from a Canal and Rivers Trust project similar to our Developing the Natural Aire

Where weirs cannot be removed, the solution is engineering. Records show rough fishways built in France during the 1600s. Here bundles of branches were used to create steps in steep channels to bypass obstructions. Engineered fish pass design has come a long way since the first one was patented in 1837 in New Brunswick, Canada. All designs seek to make weirs passable to fish. The majority of modern fish passes on the River Aire are Larinier Passes. Metal baffles in the base of them slow the flow over the weir that fish can swim or leap through.

The reconnection of 60km of habitat in the River Aire by the Developing the Natural Aire project will allow the return of Atlantic salmon, sea trout and other migratory fish. Monitoring conducted alongside the project has recorded a brown trout travelling from Armley Mills to Cross Flatts in Bingley (and most likely beyond) in a huge 80-kilometre journey to search for new areas to feed, breed and shelter in. This journey would have been impossible before Developing the Natural Aire as weirs like Kirkstall Abbey were completely impassible to fish.