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Newsletter Winter 2016/171

2016 YEAR IN REVIEWOnce again the Crane Valley Partnership (CVP), has been very active across the Crane catchment with numerous projects undertaken. Green Corridor has continued hosting the Partnership and is greatful to the following organisations that assisted financially with this endeavour.

• London Borough of Richmond-upon-Thames• London Borough of Hounslow• London Borough of Ealing• London Borough of Harrow• Heathrow Airports Ltd• Thames Water• Defra

The newsletter will give you a taster of the works undertaken throughout the catchment in 2016.

New CEO for Green CorridorIn 2016 Green Corridor saw the appointment of our new Chief Executive. Tim Knight started in April and has already embedded himself well within the organisation.

Valley Partnership and his knowledge and experience will be of great value to both Green Corridor and the CVP. To get in touch with Tim directly, please email him at tim@greencorridor.org.uk.

Thames Water Compensation Fund

The Compensation Fund continued to support a number of projects in the catchment during the year, including monitoring, feasibility, and physical improvments. The fund has £28,000 left which will be used during 2017 to support a post-project appraisal report; an independent review of the CVP moving forward; and contribute towards an HLF Landscape Partnership bid.

Below are summaries of the projects supported during 2016.

Citizen CraneThe Citizen Crane project, undertaken by Friends of the River Crane Environment (FORCE), the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Frog Environmental, and with the help of a network of 50 volunteers, monitors water quality and ecological value every month at 11 sites throughout the Crane catchment.

Tim started his working career with the National Rivers Authority as a Pollution Control Officer in mid-Wales and then, with the creation of the Environment Agency moved to the Thames Valley as a river catchment manager, triggering his passion for better linking communities to their local environment. After that, for 14 years as Development Director at Groundwork South, he worked with disadvantaged young people on a myriad of projects and programmes. Tim is very excited to be working with the Crane

Photo Credit: Joe Pecorelli

Enjoying a stroll up the river during the Outfall Safari

Photo Credit: Green Corridor

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This summer we also undertook an “outfall safari” - volunteers walking the full 30km length of the river, recording and assessing a total of 235 surface water outfalls. Eight of these were deemed to be sufficiently polluting for immediate investigation by the Environment Agency, and the overall dataset has been of great value in prioritising investment by Thames Water in its Surface Water Outfall Programme (SWOP).

Monitoring started in April 2014, and plans for a fourth year of monitoring (from April 2017) are currently being developed. More details of the project, including all the reports to date, can be found on the Crane Valley Partnership web-site.

The project team welcome others using and developing the datasets, and we have worked with a number of universities for example, with students using and developing the data for research projects, and the outputs adding to our overall understanding of the river system. The approaches have already been adopted and developed in other London rivers and have also been presented at national river forums. If you are interested in finding out more, or using and applying the data, please contact the project team at crane.monitoring@gmail.com.

River Crane Fish Passage Assessment

The River Crane Fish Passage Assessment was conducted in order to provide a full physical assessment of all obstructions to upstream and downstream coarse fish and eel passage in the Crane Catchment. The project was overseen by Tom White, London Wildlife Trust’s Senior Conservation Officer for the Crane Valley with support from Dr Ilse Steyl, Crane Valley Partnership Development Manager and two post graduate volunteer interns, over a two month timeframe.

The study aimed to prioritise barriers for removal in terms of their impact on the ingress of fish from the River Thames and their impact on habitat connectivity.

Photo Credit: Tom White

Stepped weir at Hounslow Mill Stream

Priority barriers preventing fish migration

The conclusions and recommendations of the report have provided the CVP with information to deduce which barriers are having the greatest impact on fish populations and which of these structures would be the most valuable to remove or ease. The Crane Valley Partnership Fisheries Group have met prior to the production of the report to outline the next steps required to start carrying out barrier easement projects. The results of the study are available via the CVP website along with interactive maps of the catchment displaying the location of each barrier.

The Crane Valley ProjectLondon Wildlife Trust was funded to undertake a feasibility study for a range of works identified

Map Author: Ilse Steyl

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Location of projects

3in the Yeading Brook Project Identification Plan. The Thames Water Compensation Fund supported the feasibility stage as well as physical works at Brookside Open Space and Yeading Brook Meadows North.

Volunteers showing off their handy work after a river clean up

to catalyse the establishment of aquatic plants, in addition to providing access for park users and river walkers. Our volunteers improved access further by raking out a woodland trail adjacent to the river in the hope that it would draw people to the water’s edge.

We also conducted three river clean ups at the site which were supported by our regular volunteers and a volunteer work party from Thames Water. Over the three sessions we removed 70 refuse sacks of litter, multiple car parts, scrap metal, three shopping trollies, three oil drums, and vast quantities of other fly tipped waste. All trash removed was disposed of by The London Borough of Hillingdon.

A more serious problem at the site was also uncovered in the form of drugs use. As trees were cleared, we uncovered large areas where drugs paraphernalia had been

discarded. After liaising with the London Borough of Hillingdon, a professional clean up team attended the site and disposed of over 100 syringes, making the area safe for our volunteers and site users. We are proud that the project has made a profound difference to the safety of site users in addition to having a positive effect on the environment.

The next phase of The Crane Valley Project saw our volunteers move to The London Borough of Ealing, to implement our river improvement programme for Yeading Brook Meadows North, in

Photo Credit: Tom White

A two month river improvement programme at Brookside Open Space, Hayes with support from The London Borough of Hillingdon has successfully been delivered by LWT.

Our work in the area began by providing a talk for local residents and community groups at Brookside Community Centre. Attendees were given a presentation on the Crane Catchment, its environmental pressures and what the CVP is doing to solve these issues. Attendees were also given an introduction to the river improvement work we were undertaking in the area and how they could get involved. We later organised a river walk to demonstrate what the project had achieved to local residents.

To kick start our volunteer programme, we organised a number of informal training sessions in order to teach participants the techniques we would be using to improve the river. Attendees later went on to train over 30 new volunteers in the skills they had learned.

Our river improvement programme was delivered over 20 volunteer sessions at the site and saw The Crane Valley Project Team install five brash berms, three flow deflectors and five hinged trees along 560m of river. The London Borough of Hillingdon provided support in terms of 900m2 of tree works, which opened up areas of natural light onto the river channel

Map Author: Ilse Steyl

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Northolt. We received support from The London Borough of Ealing who managed to clear approximately 2000m2 of scrub surrounding the river channel, leading to improved light levels and better public access.

We held a number of additional training sessions in order to train volunteers who lived locally to the site, who later went on to teach others their skills. In addition to this we also provided training for local practitioners from The London Borough of Ealing and Groundwork so that the improvement techniques learnt through the project could be replicated in other river catchments.

was disposed of by The London Borough of Ealing.

We are looking for volunteers to help us implement our river improvement plans for Crane Park Island, Whitton during the month of January; and Gutteridge Wood, Uxbridge in the month of February. Please contact LWT’s Senior Conservation Officer, Tom White (twhite@wildlondon.org.uk), for more information and our next volunteer workdays.

Lower Duke’s River ProjectThe project, one of seven projects across London that received funding from the Mayor’s Big Green Fund II in March 2015, with further funding from the Borough Councils of Richmond-upon-Thames and Hounslow as well as the SITA Trust, continued in 2016. Some of the highlights during 2016 include:

• Improvements to pathways and dead hedge laying were undertaken at Silverhall Park, Isleworth, to improve the site’s environmen-tal value, led by Green Corridor;

• New pathways along the stretch between Kneller Gardens and Chase bridge - edge planting were also undertaken through The Conservation Volunteers (TCV) and FORCE;

• Marginal wetland was installed along the concrete bank stretch near Chase Bridge by TCV, with support from Frog Environmental;

• Preparation of signage along the 4km route as well as information leaflets;

• A design competition was also held with

Installing brash berms

Photo Credit: Tom White

Our river improvement programme was delivered over 24 volunteer workdays and saw our volunteer install eight brash berms and 14 flow deflectors at the site, improving 900m of river. Our volunteers also helped to create site lines to the river from existing footpaths in order to encourage site users to familiarise themselves with the Yeading Brook. We regularly engaged site users in order to promote the project and familiarise local residents with the environmental enhancements being implemented.

We completed work at the site by undertaking two river clean ups which saw our volunteers remove 40 refuse sacks of litter, two shopping trollies, 15 car tires, a motorbike, two bicycles and large amounts of scrap metal and fly tipped waste from the river. All waste removed

Design of emblem to be used for Duke’s River Path Walk

Emblem Design:Paul Smith

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schools in the area to design a logo for the Duke’s River Walk;

• The Environment Agency supported LB Houn-slow at an open day held to engage the local community on potential river improvements along Riverside Walk.

A series of walk and talks, organised through FORCE, will be delivered during 2017, which will focus on different aspects of the river - ecology, history, and current uses including two visist to Mogden Sewage Works. More in-formation can be found on the FORCE web-site.

Lower River CraneRestoration Visioning

The lower River Crane is mostly heavily modi-fied with a concrete channel and bed installed in the 1960s and has been heavily fenced off Discussions on the potential to restore

these reaches to a more natural state has been going on for a number of years. In March 2016 the Environment Agency pro-vided a grant of £5,000 funding and the services of a Landscape Architect to help co-ordinate as some seed funding to gen-erate a vision for this section of the river and Thames Water (through the Thames Water compensation fund) supplemented the amount with an additional £1,300.

A Steering Group that represents a num-ber of stakeholders along the stretch was established and the first meeting was held in May this year. It was agreed that a visioning document should be commis-sioned. After a tender process, Astronaut Kawada Architecture was appointed to undertake the visioning exercise.

As part of the visioning process a work-shop was held with the Steering Group members in September and two site vis-its, one with Steering Group members and one with the River Restoration Cen-tre were organised. The draft visioning document will be discussed at the next meeting at the end of January 2017. The planned publication of the document is before the end of March 2017. This docu-ment will be used for engaging the in-terest of the community, gaining politi-cal buy-in, fundraising, and to assist with moving towards feasibility studies.

Lower River Crane Map Author: Ilse Steyl

in the past, resulting in it becoming almost a forgotten river. This section of the Crane straddles two local authority boundaries, the London Boroughs of Hounslow and Richmond-upon-Thames.

Lower River Crane atCranford Playing Fields

Photo Credit: Ilse Steyl

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Mereway WeirThe Mereway Auto Weir was constructed in the late 1930s at the bifurcation of the Duke of Northumberland’s River with the River Crane to maintain the water level in the lower Duke of Northumberland’s River. Excess flows are discharged down-stream to the River Crane, which leaves the River Crane downstream with very lit-tle or sometimes no water during the dry season.

As part of their Restoring Sustainable Ab-straction programme, the Environment Agency have been reassessing the vol-ume of water that could be diverted down the River Crane. Their initial calculations, published in a report in February 2016, indicated that there should be enough water to do this without affecting the Thames Water abstraction at Mogden, or having other negative effects on the Duke of Northumberland’s River itself.

seven volunteers, who assisted in the exercise by taking fixed point photos and recording wa-ter levels on the day.

The results of the test will be published in the in early 2017. If all goes well, the Environment Agency will be able to reset the level of the weir and allow more water to pass down the River Crane during dry weather. This will open up the possibility of restoring or enhancing the lower reaches of the Crane (see Lower River Crane Visioning project above). In the longer term, the weir will eventually be replaced.

Northcote Nature ReserveFrom modest beginnings we are at last looking at the plans for the proposed nature reserve which are to go to a public meeting at some point in February 2017 for information.

The situation of the park is unique in that it runs alongside the tidal part of the River Crane which is the dividing line between LB Hounslow and LB Richmond-upon-Thames, athough the Park is in Hounslow. The ‘Friends’ group com-prises residents from both boroughs who are enthusiastic in their wish to see this neglected area become a real asset for all the local area. There is also an application for the area to be designated a Village Green currently going through the legal process.

Funding from Hounslow’s S106 monies has been granted enabling the first test works to be planned and carried out. Unfortunately the

River Crane at Mereway weir beforeflow test

A real-life test was needed to back up their calculations however, so during a dry spell on 18 October the Environment Agency temporarily lowered the level of the weir to investigate the effects on both rivers. They were grateful for the help of

River Crane at Mereway weir during flow test

Photo Credit: Environment Agency

Photo Credit: Environment Agency

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opportunity to spray the Japanese Knotweed was missed so that is something we hope will be picked up around May time.

It’s fair to say there have been some misgiv-ings from a few residents whose gardens back on to the River Crane – however as far as has been possible their concerns have been taken into account through the evolving process to where we have arrived now.

For our small park to be a part of the whole

still growing on the tidal Crane resulted in a photo record of over 30 species in-cluding all those originally mentioned and many more. We have assisted with the Citizen Crane Eel Watch project and made a tentative start on outfall mapping/mon-itoring, following a serious pollution in-cident from an outfall under the Talbot Road bridge. We continue to develop and maintain links with partner organi-sations, mapping and managing invasive species with assistance from the Environ-ment Agency and our River Celebration Day was supported by Thames21. In the event, heavy rain meant the river was too high for our traditional river clearing but a history talk, river dipping for children, a family tea, barbecue and Bat talk (in-cluding use of rather exciting Bat Monitor device!) made it a memorable and popu-lar event. We are pleased to say that boat ownership on our stretch of the river ap-pears to be on the increase and we look forward to our 40th Anniversary in 2017!

Causeway Open SpaceIn 2015 the CVP secured funding through Defra to create a backwater at the Causeway Open Space, just upstream of the Causeway bridge, next to the River

River Crane project is very exciting and we are very grateful to CVP, FORCE, The Tidal Crane Assoc. and the Environment Agency plus sev-eral other groups for their input and advice. Finally to Dean Griffiths who has patiently worked through the design process from the beginning to where we are now, a huge thank-you.

Tidal Crane AssociationIn addition to our usual annual River Celebra-tion Day and participation in the Lower River Crane Restoration Steering Group, we initiated a number of other projects. A Wild Flower Sur-vey (greatly assisted by Mike Waller of London Wildlife Trust) to find out which plants men-tioned in Hounslow’s 1990 Ecology Report are

River dipping during River Celebration Day Photo Credit: Hilary Thomson

Northcote Nature Reserve at start of Tidal Crane

Map Author: Ilse Steyl

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Crane. The project was managed through LWT. This work was finally finished in April 2016 at which point a backwater and gravel riffle were successfully installed. This left the space ready for transplanting native species from further downstream to help spawning fish and amphibians, which Green Corridor managed.

Under the supervision of Collin Cakebread and Andy Bailey a group of our learners (Rory, Alfie, Adam and Karim) spent every Wednesday for five weeks over the sum-mer digging up and transplanting wood dock, sedges, gypsy wort and water pep-per from downstream to the newly cre-ated backwater area. We also introduced some additional species from our Native Species Nursery, plants that were grown from seed harvested in 2015 along the Crane Valley.

The young people involved in the project were at first not hugely enthusiastic as there was a lot of work involved in clear-

ing rubbish and cutting back brush with hand tools in the heat of the summer sun. Once the bulk of the heavy work was done and we were trotting back and forth along the river with barrows full of native plants, they started to enjoy themselves a lot more, the weeks we spent down by the river were quite peaceful, aside from air traffic noise, and passers-by were very curious as to what we were doing. Now that the project is over we look forward to seeing the results and will be taking the young people back in the spring/early summer to see how their hard work has paid off.

Cranford ParkThe Cranford Park Friends had yet anoth-er successful year organising many events that were well attended, including wonderful displays of wildflowers and vegetables, litter picking, clearance of Frog’s Ditch (joint ses-sions with Thames21).

Regular riverfly and water quality monitoring has been carried out by a small band of vol-unteers who have fed the collected data into the Citizen Crane project (see page 1 of this Newsletter). Member Wendy Marks has taken on the job of completing a weekly Butterfly Transect of Cranford for the UK Butterfly Moni-toring Scheme, feeding data into its national database.

Causeway backwater

Green Corridor learners working hard

Photo Credit: Tom White

Photo Credit: Collin Cakebread

Himalayan Balsam removal along River Crane in Cranford Park

In July, several members assisted LB Hilling-don’s Countryside & Conservation Officer run-ning a day clearing Himalayan Balsam from the riverbank with a dozen young volunteers (aged 16-17) with National Citizen Service. We then gave them a ‘treasure hunt’ style quiz of the park’s history and geography. So inspired were they by the park and our ambitions for it that they also fundraised more than £450 for us.

Photo Credit: Dragana Knezevic

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Slightly less good news are that during the summer, four rafts of floating pennywort ap-peared in the River Crane, near Cranford Park. London Wildlife Trust and the local volunteers involved in the management and monitoring of Yeading Brook and River Crane in Hillingdon have informed us that these invasive plants have never been spotted upstream from Cran-ford Park. The rafts have been removed im-mediately by the council’s contractors. The area will be monitored to ensure that possible re-appearance of this invasive species is dealt with swiftly in the future.

Work towards a Heritage Lottery Fund (HLF) bid for the park and its buildings continued during 2016. Jointly with LB Hillingdon, the Friends are aiming to put a bid to the HLF in 2017.

timescale for bid completion is June 2018.

The major works will include:

• River restoration;• Sedimentation ponds; (to prevent silt

deposition in the historic moat)• Flood prevention and storage areas• Reeds beds (to improve water qual-

ity);• Restoration of an ancient woodland;• Creating nature trails and circular

footpaths;• De-culverting of a section of river;• Two bridges;• Storage buildings for educational

equipment;• Improving sign posting inside and out-

side the park.

These improvements go hand-in-hand with the restoration of Headstone Manor Museum, which includes the tithe barn (completed during 2016), Headstone Manor House, the small barn, granary and a new visitor centre. We are all look-ing forward to these exciting new devel-opments to a small gem in the middle of Harrow and at the top of the Crane catch-ment, dating back to the early 1300s.

Newton ParkNewton Park in southeast Harrow, is an open space area just over 4.5ha in size.

Yeading Brook West running through Head-stone Manor Recreation Ground

Photo Credit: Ilse Steyl

Satisfied volunteers after clearing Himalayan Bal-sam along River Crane in Cranford Park

Photo Credit: Dragana Knezevic

It is clear that Cranford Park inspires people in many ways but its lack of facilities and invest-ment is making work difficult and stifling us-ers’ enjoyment of a great natural and histori-cal resource. We are continuing to work with LB Hillingdon to address these issues. Thank you to everyone who helped this year, espe-cially our regular volunteers - including our Committee. We particularly thank our retiring Committee members Lorraine Barton, Billy Co-burn and Andy Wilmore for their hard work and commitment.

Headstone ManorHarrow Council were notified in August 2016 that their 1st Round Bid for Heritage Lottery Parks for People funding was successful and have been awarded £229,700 to complete a Development Phase Plan that will be used to progress and finalise the second round bid that will release the £1,356,600 capital funds. The

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For more information, please visit:www.cranevalley.org.uk

or contact

Dr Ilse SteylCVP Development Manager:cvp@greencorridor.org.uk

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The Roxbourne Stream, a tributary of the Yeading Brook East, runs through the Park. As part of the Newton Park Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCRM) funding project proposal, a 500m length of the Roxbourne Stream is includ-ed.

them about the environment, ecology and bio-diversity.

London Rivers WeekIn 2016, the capital held its first ever Rivers Week between 27 June and 3 July. Through a series of guided walks & talks with experts from environmental organisations making up the London Rivers Restoration Group (a sub-group of the Catchment Partnerships in Lon-don), residents and visitors learnt what makes our urban rivers unique, insights into the chal-lenges they face and new ways to connect with them.

Partners of the CVP also particpated in organ-ising events during this week and two of the projects within the catchment were used as case studies (the Yeading Brook Meadows and the Causeway Open Space).

As a result of the success of the first Riv-ers Week, 2017 will see another celebration of the capital’s rivers between 26 June and 2 July! Make sure to add this week in your dia-ries. More information will be available on the CVP website as well as the dedicated page on Thames21’s website.

Looking forward to 2017We believe 2017 will be yet another year of exciting projects and collaborative work within the Partnership. Although many challenges lie ahead, the successes of the the past four years despite the challenges, serve as a reminder of what can be done.

Thank you to everyone of the Partners and vol-unteers of the Crane Valley for your hard work and support.

Proposed plans for Newton Parkrehabilitation

The project is a river restoration and flood storage scheme, and includes new hard surfaced and mown footpaths, improve-ments to the park by introducing new flowering meadows and wetlands vegeta-tion’s inclusive of earth bunds for flood protection, new footbridges, bird watch-ing and sitting areas, hydrology and hy-draulic modelling which builds on the 2014 Hyder Consulting Scoping Study.

We are working alongside the CVP and LB Harrow’s Community Engagement Team to help set up a Friends’ group for the park, and arrange for schools nearby to have outdoor classes and activities where they can use the park and river to teach