Hello Conservation Volunteers
Thank you to all the volunteers who turned up for our latest work morning on yet another fantastic sunny, autumn morning. What a great day to be out working in the valley!
Glyn led a team comprising of Chris, Ted, Nicola, Julia, Dinah and Rowena up into Bingham Park to tackle the overgrown holly and brambles which had reduced the width of footpaths in the park. These footpaths do not receive the same attention as other areas of the valley, so it was high time they were tackled, and the team have done a great job.
Higher up the valley at Porter Clough, Matt led a small team to continue working on building a series of leaky dams to reduce the flow of the Porter Brook when it is in spate, and hence reduce erosion and silt being washed down the valley. The premise is that they should not reduce the flow of the river under normal conditions, only when in spate.
Matt had brought his chainsaw to thin out some self-set saplings in the area which were then used for the purpose of building the dams. In some areas, stakes have to be hammered into the bank sides for the logs to be positioned behind to be held in place, whilst in other areas the logs can be wedged behind the existing rocks. Time will tell over the winter months as to how they perform and how strong they are - we'll be popping back after we have had a good deluge to check!
In total, three dams were built during the morning, adding to the previous two built in June which are thankfully still standing!
If you are interested in seeing what the volunteers have been doing on building the leaky dams you will find the 5 dams in the vicinity of this address on "what3words" https://w3w.co/plank.begun.number. They are near the new bench which we installed in June, but please do not disturb the structures by adding or removing any of the timbers.
The next work morning is on Tuesday 25th October. An email will be sent out with details requesting volunteers for the various tasks.
Lyndon
A Selection of photos from the work morning
(Sadly there are not as many photos this time as I was preoccupied in the middle of the Porter Brook!) Philip and Dave sawing and moving logs
The team at work busily sawing up logs
Matt, Dave, Philip and Steve at the end of morning with two of the completed leaky dams
