Bridget Flanagan, Trustee of the Great Ouse Valley Trust, explains how flooding is a natural phenomenon here, why its nature is changing and what we can do about it. The full article is available for downloading below.
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Graham Campbell, Chair, describes the start of the Trust’s work on the Ouse Valley Way footpath. Please note the original article submitted was cut in order to fit the Hunts Post space available. The original version is available for downloading below.
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Bridget Flanagan, Trustee of the Great Ouse Valley Trust, describes the unique appeal of its iconic features, past and present.
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This article appeared in St Ives NOW! December 2020 - January 2021. The third of a regular series of stories 'Tales from the Riverbank', entitled 'Ancient Woods'.
Bridget Flanagan, Trustee of the Great Ouse Valley Trust, reflects on the recent revival of swimming in our river
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Covers August, September and Part October.
Protecting the landscape
Our fight to scrap the third river crossing is now behind us. Our wonderful landscape is at the forefront of our local politician’s minds and the value of the valley is now acknowledged by all sides of the political divide. This gives us is an opportunity to really promote and enhance the landscape in the coming months.
The Government recently announced that it wants to extend by 30% the area of land with protected designation such as National Park, Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty etc. It is now an ideal time to push Natural England to designate the Great Ouse Valley as an AONB with all the better protection that this would offer. This idea was first proposed by an enthusiastic local group in around 2014 but still no decision has been made.
Communicating with you
Our website has been getting plenty of hits in the last year. However, our Facebook page has had a number of issues. We realise how important it is to use social media efficiently and to this end we are pleased to welcome Zoe Ryall to manage our use more efficiently. We now have regular features in the Hunts Post and other local publications.
Current topics
Our second Zoom Partner Member meeting took place in September. There were two main topics for discussion. The first was the project to improve the Ouse Valley Way long- distant footpath through Cambridgeshire.
Photograph by Graham Campbell
A delightful section of the Ouse Valley Way with welcome resting place.
Volunteers from our Partner Members will be surveying their own stretch of the footpath. We need to identify where we need new posts and new way-marking signs. We will also be replacing the 20-year-old interpretation boards and hopefully putting in new ones along the route. We are working with the County Council on this project and are now delighted to be in discussion with Coral Walton, the graphic designer responsible for the original signage and boards. We now need the input of all our members to help provide ideas for the new boards.
The second item up for discussion at the last Partner Meeting was how the Trust should respond to the Government’s new White Paper on the reform of the planning process. This is a complicated issue. In order to get our members’ views we have created a short questionnaire available here to for you to complete, to ensure we get as many views as possible.
Funding application
The Trust has just made an application for a substantial grant from the Green Recovery Challenge Fund for the Great Ouse Valley Landscape and Biodiversity project. The project includes the Ouse Valley Way, the planting of new willow and black poplar trees along Cooks Stream, and the collection of data to help inform the work of the Trust in the future. If successful the Trust would appoint a Project Coordinator to manage the project. Our partner member, CPRE – the Countryside Charity, has kindly offered the joint use of their office in St Ives. This is a great example of how our Partner Members can work with us for mutual benefit.
Looking ahead
Many of our Partner Members attended the successful Zoom event organised by Natural Cambridgeshire that focussed on the Doubling Nature project. We hope to promote the recommended Parish Nature Recovery Toolkit in the future.
As we move into autumn, with all the limitations of the pandemic, it is comforting to live in an area where the benefits of the natural environment can still be enjoyed. We are all now much more aware of just how precious and valuable the landscape is to our local communities. Please keep in touch with us as we strive to make sure it remains so.
Graham Campbell, October 2020
We were invited to submit an article for the Civic Society's Annual Report and so our Chair, Graham Campbell, wrote the following:
St Ives NOW! October-November 2020 article, the second of a regular column to appear in the latest NOW magazine.
Anglian Water announce work for eels now finished and the OVW footpath reopened May 2020
Anglian Water report that work at their Offord Intake Water Treatment Site is now complete, site cabins and equipment have been removed and the public footpath has reopened. They wish to thank the public for their co-operation throughout the scheme.
Anglian Water has now completed one of their £3.2 m investment schemes to protect endangered species. The European Eel is now classed as critically endangered after a 95% declined in population over the last 25 years.
Eels spend their early years in rivers across Europe before migrating to the Sargasso Sea in the North Atlantic to spawn. The spawn is then thought to use the Gulf Stream to return to our rivers, by which time they have developed into very small glass eels.
One of the reasons why the eel population is thought to have declined so rapidly in recent years is because structures in our rivers, like weirs, locks and other machinery prevents the species from completing its migration cycle in order to reproduce.
The new screens at Offord D’Arcy will stop eels from entering the abstraction intake, but the size of the mesh on the screens will also mean fish and other organisms will be protected from being drawn into the machinery.
For more information or you have any queries, please contact the Anglian Water 24-hour customer helpline on 03457 145 145 and quote reference number 55920018. Information can also be found on our ‘In Your Area’ website at www.anglianwater.co.uk/yourarea
To find out what else Anglian Water is doing for the environment follow this link: www.anglianwater.co.uk/environment
MESSAGE TO ALL PARTNER MEMBERS
The Trust has welcomed new partner members in the last month and I can report that we are now very representative of local councils and national and local groups, and all those who love our wonderful landscape. We can also now welcome individual supporters and more information on how to get involved can be found here.
Strategic plan now available.
A lot of work has gone into our Strategic Plan and this was discussed at our first open meeting for all our partner members held on Zoom in June. The final version has been published and can be found here. It is an ambitious plan and will of course be monitored regularly to check progress.
A victory for common sense.
After a very intense campaign by the Trust the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority (CPCA) has scrapped its plans for an elevated dual carriageway road across one of the most beautiful landscapes in the East of England (see Media). We need to celebrate all the hard work of our partner members and many individuals who have helped us achieve this great result. It has involved meetings with the Combined Authority, attendance at Board meetings, radio interviews, letter writing and lobbying at every opportunity. Since its inception the Trust has sought to ensure that we are not viewed simply as a NIMBY organisation. We are pleased that we have demonstrated the value of our landscape not just for local biodiversity, physical and mental health and climate change, but also for the economic success of the whole of Cambridgeshire. We want to help attract both tourists and the brightest and best to come and live in work in our county, which has less ‘natural’ landscape than any other rural county in the UK.
After this success we now have more time to move onto all the other important work identified in our Strategic Plan to ‘promote, protect and enhance the Great Ouse Valley.’
Our website has been well received. Please check out our new Sights and Sounds section and send us your contributions to help us demonstrate the fantastic variety of life in the Valley. We are looking to extend and improve our social media presence and are actively seeking expertise and advice in this area. If you think you can help and advise please be in touch.
Photograph by Keith Knight
A Green Woodpecker reflected in the sunset – a new entry in Sights and Sounds.
Other important projects
We continue to work with the County Council to improve and update the Ouse Valley Way long- distance footpath. Parishes will shortly be contacted to agree dates when contractors, assisted by volunteers, will install new way-marking posts. Detailed negotiations to re-route the footpath along the river bank to avoid Meadow Lane in St Ives are now advanced. Bridge repairs and new interpretation boards are also planned.
The large project to enhance landscape and biodiversity across the Commons between Huntingdon, Godmanchester and the Hemingfords, in response to the Woodland Trust initiative to ‘’cool the rivers’, progresses well. Our partners are the Godmanchester Freemen, Huntingdonshire District Council and the farmers, and we have received great support from the Environment Agency and Natural England. Following trial plantings last winter (see Media) we are hopeful that work can re-commence this coming winter.
There are many other initiatives underway in all parts of the valley from St Neots up to Earith and the Washes. All projects are inevitably affected by the pandemic. The availability of grants in the future remains a matter of concern but we are grateful for a donation of £333 from the Waitrose Community Matters scheme last month.
The Trust has the opportunity to build on what we have achieved in the last 18 months and work towards a major Landscape Partnership project for the whole Great Ouse Valley in the near future.
The scrapping of the Third River Crossing has shown what we can achieve if we all to work together. There are exciting times ahead.
Graham Campbell, July 2020
How you can voice your opinion on the proposed Third River Crossing
We have had success recently in gaining local media coverage of the Cambridge and Peterborough Combined Authority’s Local Transport Plan, and in particular the recent adoption of two local Prospectus for Growth reports (Huntingdon and St Ives). These contain references to a proposed river crossing between Huntingdon and St Ives and our concern is that the only suitable ‘non-built-up’ site for such a construction is between Houghton and Godmanchester. This has naturally attracted attention and we have received a number of requests from local residents who ask,’ What can we do’?
If you are as concerned as we are about this proposal and the way it is being processed through the Local Authority’s approval systems, then here are suggestions from the Trust to answer this question. The truth of the matter is that the current crisis and the effect it is having on Local Authority decision-making is making it difficult for the public to be as informed as usual. When the issues are as important as this then we believe it is our duty to do our utmost to bring them to your attention and invite you to contribute your voice to the forum in the following ways. Thank you for your support.
- Please write to your MP, Jonathan Djanogly , plus your District and/or County Councillor. You can find out who these are for your location from the District Council website Huntingdonshire District Council Contact Us and the County Council website Cambridgeshire County Council Contact Us
You can use the following information and the following questions plus anything else you see on the Great Ouse Valley Trust website to focus your communication:
The Mayor of Cambridge and Peterborough has proposed a new road, crossing the Great Ouse east of Huntington. The proposal has now also found its way into growth plans for Huntington and St Ives. The Mayor is spending hundreds of thousands of pounds on feasibility studies for a road that in a very short length may cross or come very close to a Site of Special Scientific Interest, a Wildlife Trust Nature Reserve, a Conservation Area, a proposed Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, several wildlife-rich fisheries, areas of open water, woodland and reedbed, a local Nature Reserve, a proposed Country Park and Common Lands. It potentially crosses part of the largest remaining expanses of rare flood-plain meadows in England and an ancient landscape beloved of artists and dotted with willows, wetlands and woodlands. Within close sight of the National Trust property of Houghton Mill, the proposed dual carriageway road would need to be elevated for much of its length to take it above flood level, and will constitute a massive intrusion in this picturesque part of the Ouse Valley, beloved of walkers and river users alike. The end product will be similar to the old A14 where it crosses the Ouse next to the Old Bridge in Huntington. The legality of the Mayor’s transport strategy has been questioned. The town growth plans referred to have had minimal public consultation or scrutiny. It is also unclear to what extent the public will be consulted on, or given access to, the proposed feasibility study on the crossing and associated roadworks. The cost of the feasibility study, the road and the bridge are of course colossal. The damage to our irreplaceable landscape and wildlife is incalculable.
- Please question this waste of public funds on a project of unproven and questionable value where little attention has been given either to the case or the alternative options
- Please question why the public have had so little opportunity so far to comment or object to these proposals
- Please question if such proposals for transport pass the Paris Climate Change Agreement Please question what, if any, environmental impact assessment is or will be taking place and if so demand that it be made public
- Please question how such a development supports the Government’s stated strategy for nature conservation and the environment proposed in the 25-year Environment Plan, or the proposals contained in the Government’s Environment Bill pledging to reduce carbon emissions to zero by 2050 (see this link for further information on this issue: Forbes Website)
- Please question where are the Cambridgeshire County Council or the Huntingdonshire District Council policies that should be protecting our precious and diminishing landscape assets
If you would like us to have a copy of your correspondence and the responses you receive then we shall be pleased to keep this in order to build a picture of public opinion to inform our planning. We of course undertake to not disclose this to any third party without your permission. Thank you for your interest in the Great Ouse Valley Trust and its efforts to preserve and protect our precious landscape. If you are interested in joining our proposed new Supporters’ Group then please use this website to let us know.
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