‘Our aim is to restore nature at scale’: Section of flowing Nottinghamshire river brought back after more than 70 years
A section of flowing river has returned to a former Nottinghamshire colliery site for the first time in more than 70 years thanks to a restoration project.
Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust has reinstated the water to flow into key section of Vicar Water at Clipstone.
The return of 600m (656 yards) of river runs from a railway bridge to Baulker Lane in Vicar Water, as part of the larger ‘Three Rivers Restoration Project’. Running water was lost in the are during the construction of Clipstone Colliery in the 1950s.
The wider project aims to deliver improvements to the water environment in three rivers within the Idle Catchment, for which Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust is partly responsible for.
The work in Vicar Water includes restoring a more natural river channel through ‘deculverting’ and river regrading, introducing berms, riffles, pools and meanders to improve water flow and enhance wildlife habitat.
Trust Communications manager, Erin McDaid said: “We are essentially creating a river valley where there isn’t one.
“I was onsite last summer looking at what we planned to do and putting back river stream where there wasn’t one – it was very exciting, but being on site last week and seeing the scale of this work is so exciting.
“Our aim is to put nature into recovery and we need to do that at scale, and this project is about us restoring nature at scale.”
The project will unearth 20,000 cubic metres of spoil, which is equivalent to 250,000 wheelbarrows of earth.
It also expects to revitalise a new habitat, through sowing plants and flowers and bring about a variety of species, including Water voles, Kingfishers, Sticklebacks and even bats which thrive on marsh land.
While it has been over 70 years since river flowed in this area, Nottinghamshire Wildlife Trust Project Manager, Ian Higginson said, “We have met a local dog walker on Vicar Water who remembers the river at the top end [Vicar Dale] before mining and remembers trout tickling [rubbing their tummies by hand to make them relax then you can scoop them out of water easily by hand].”
The ambitious project is partnered with Severn Trent, the second largest water company in the UK, which serves more than 4.8 million homes and businesses.
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