One of our founding members and the Trust's Chairman for the first four years of its existence, Kevin is a keen advocate for the river. There are few people connected with it who haven't met Kevin. His passion and persistence over many years has been instrumental in transforming the river.
Following the major improvements to water quality, Kevin has continually highlighted the possibilities for the return of migratory fish to the Aire and has successfully prepared the way for this to happen.
Barney has been a Trustee since the start of ART (2011). He brings his research experience in his role as Emeritus Professor of Environmental Engineering at the University of Sheffield. A major theme of his research is about groundwater and contaminated land; more recently he has been working on a range of projects on urban rivers and their pollution. These have included: the risks of pollution from industrial estates, the effects of misconnections in sewer systems on river ecology, and the barriers to salmon passage on the river Don.
With his student Dave Chandler, he developed a cheap and effective way to monitor for misconnected drainage which was widely publicised, for example in the Guardian and on Buzzfeed, and is now being used in the beck.
Barney leads the Friends of Bradford’s Becks work. As well as regular litter picks in the spring when the vegetation is still short, there is an invasive species group. The group is currently working on renaturalising sections of the beck.
I’ve recently joined as a trustee for ART. I have over 10 years experience of working within the environmental sector, particularly within catchment management and freshwater pollution. My day job is at Natural England where I manage our freshwater programme on nature recovery across protected sites and input into government policy. I’m keen to bring these skills to ART and make a difference on the ground.