Last year 13 groups joined the Aire Rivers Trust’s OurCleanRiver event. The highlights were clearing tons of debris at Bull Greave Beck and using the steam train in Keighley to transport rubbish and volunteers.
In 2024 we want to involve even more groups in community action to improve our river from Gargrave to Leeds and beyond. These clean-ups will remove litter and debris pollution to help boost the entire river’s health. River clean-up events will start on Thursday, 14th March until Friday, 22nd March 2024. This also ties in with the dates of Keep Britain Tidy Spring Clean.
This is the 3rd year we are running events bringing together community action and improvements in your local river. The improvements are beneficial for wildlife as well as the visual appearance of the district.
How Can Your Community Group Join OurCleanRiver 2024?
Similar to last year we would love you to pick a section of river or beck local to you and organise a clean-up between the dates.
We are able to support your group with equipment, risk assessments, social media templates, and arranging the removal of the collected rubbish.
This is just one of a selection of photos and suggested wording for social media posts we have to share. We can use your logo and wording to complete the phrase.
After you have completed the cleanup, we will ask you to record your achievements and send a photo of the group with the rubbish you have collected.
Join us for River Clean Ups 2024
Aire Rivers Trust will be leading several River Clean Ups across the middle catchment. Dates and locations are available below. Please sign up as a volunteer via our My Impact system at the bottom of the page.
Project Officer Gareth Muir gives us an update about what the volunteers have been up to last month.
Tool maintenance
After returning from the Christmas and New Year break, the practical volunteers got stuck into a spot of tool maintenance. Volunteers joined staff at our office in Greengates to sort, clean, sharpen and oil the tools used by the volunteers to carry out practical environmental conservation tasks. Without these tools, we could not carry out the work, so they must be in top condition! Staff and volunteers had the (un)enviable task of going through the Trust’s protective equipment (PPE), ensuring it was safe, working and effective. Thankfully, everything was ship shape and Bristol fashion!
Coppicing at Druid’s Altar, St Ives, Bingley
Volunteers undertook some coppicing at Druid’s Altar hazel coppice on St Ives Estate, Bingley. Coppicing is a traditional form of woodland management with roots going back hundreds if not thousands of years. Using hand tools including; loppers, bowsaws and the iconic billhook, volunteers cut hazel ‘stools’ to harvest ‘rods’ of various diameters for a range of uses. The main use was to produce hazel hedging stakes. These stakes were later used on sites within the catchment to lay hedges. In the process of producing these stakes, volunteers realised the perfect length for a stake was an ‘Olivia’ (our River Conservation Assistant) of 1.5 metres! Over the course of three work days, volunteers coppiced 21 stools and produced 112 stakes, some may say the stakes were…’high’. Why not visit the National Coppicing association to find out more about this fascinating traditional craft?
The volunteers were busy trimming the holly hedgerow at Trench Meadow. A hedgerow, which in the past had been neglected was in need of some tender loving care. The volunteers provided this by cutting back the encroaching greenery onto the footpath, allowing footpath users to path through unmolested by errant pickily leaves! The volunteers also took the opportunity to remove encroaching bramble on the meadow, thus preventing it’s natural succession into woodland. Trench Meadow is a Site of Special Scientific interest (SSSI) containing a variety of flora, which the Trust aims to safeguard for the future. To find out about Trench Meadow, why not visit this interesting blog post by ‘The Nature Guy’ who contacted the Trust in summer 2023:
Hedge-laying continues to be a firm favourite with the Trust’s practical conservation volunteers. This month volunteers worked had to lay a predominantly hazel hedge at Ryeloaf Meadows, Bingley; a fantastically untouched site beneath the Bingley Relief Road. Accessed via Dowley Gap Waste centre, the site is managed by Bradford Council’s Countryside and Rights of Way team with the Aire Rivers Trust carrying out environmental conservation tasks onsite on their behalf. The traditional countryside management craft of hedge laying is enjoying some what of a resurgence of late and as an organisation the Trust is keen to keep these traditional skills alive and use them to improve habitat in the catchment and beyond. If you’d like to find out more about hedge laying, why not visit the National Hedge laying Society website:
Willow clearance on the riverside at Ryeloaf Meadows continues, with volunteers removing dense patches of willow near the water’s edge. Large stands of willow deflect the flow of the river away from the site, which acts as a flood water overflow. The cut willow is stacked into dense brash piles, which will in time become a new habitat for invertebrates and potentially laying up spots for male otters in the summertime. The composition of the woodland at Ryeloaf Meadow is ‘wet’ woodland (predominantly common alder and crack willow), which is an under represented habitat in the Bradford area. Woodland management often includes thinning tree numbers and producing deadwood, so that multiple layers of habitat are present with a ‘mosaic’ of canopy, understory, shrub and herb layer.
January was a busy month with a variety of tasks. The ‘nature’ (pardon the pun) of practical conservation dictates that the tasks performed by volunteers vary greatly. Moving ahead into the end of winter the volunteers will be continuing hedge laying, tree planting and gearing up to the river clean ups, once the flood waters have subsided.
Spring Special: Identifying non-native invasive species
Spring sees green shoots appearing along our riverbanks but not all of them are welcome. Some of the plants (or flora) you find along our rivers are “non-native invasive species.” These were brought to the United Kingdom from around the world and have spread causing harm to the environment. You can help protect native species and river visitors by learning how to identify and report them.
Himalayan Balsam
Himalayan balsam is controlled by pulling plants before they go to seed. It is a popular summer activity with our volunteers.
The seeds are spread by flood water. We focus on controlling it high up catchments to prevent its spread or on sites with high ecological value.
As the first true pair of leaves appears you can see the distinctive serrated edges. It has orchid pink flower.
It is widespread throughout the middle Aire catchment but less so in the Upper Aire.
Japanese knotweed
Japanese knotweed is controlled by injecting stems with pesticide. We treat Japanese knotweed along Bradford Beck. YorGreenCIC treat it in the Bradford area.
Japanese knotweed has heart shaped leaves and a tall stem that looks like a cross between rhubarb and bamboo. It can reach over head height and regrow from fragments of roots.
Identifying giant hogweed seedlings is challenging as they can be confused with native hogweed species.
Giant hogweed looks like an enormous cow parsley. It is significantly larger and can reach heights between 1.5m and 5m with a spread of between 1 and 2m. Leaves are jagged and lobed and a flower spike formed in the second year before setting seed.
Their stems are green with purple blotches and stiff, white hairs. The leaves are huge (up to 1.5m wide and 3m long) and is deeply divided into smaller leaflets. Flowers appear in June and July.
Signal crayfish can be found throughout the catchment. There is currently no viable method of control in the United Kingdom.
Large specimens can sometimes be seen from bridges or found under rocks. It is illegal to trap or fish for them without a license from the EA.
Pockets of native white-clawed crayfish populations still remain within the Aire catchment. The best way to protect them is careful biosecurity to prevent the spread of signal crayfish.
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