A Keswick-based charity is delighted to have secured a £550,000 landscape recovery grant.
West Cumbria Rivers Trust and partners the Rivers Trust and Nature Finance have been successful in securing the grant from Defra for £550k for their Resilient Glenderamackin project.
This is a significant step in the development of the large scale and ambitious whole-catchment project aiming to reduce flood risk to Keswick, whilst also addressing the biodiversity crisis, improving water quality, storing carbon and supporting local farmers. Defra recently announced 34 Landscape Recovery grants, as part of the new Environmental Land Management scheme.
Working with more than 40 land managers, the funding gives the rivers trust the opportunity to work up projects on the ground in more detail, and develop an approach for blending government agri-environment funds through Landscape Recovery with private finance.
The Glenderamackin catchment is approximately 142km2 and includes the mountains and river valleys that drain into Keswick from the east, including Mungrisdale, Troutbeck, the Naddle and St John’s in the Vale.
Land managers covering 11,000Ha have given their support to explore Landscape Recovery, including three commons associations.
The Resilient Glenderamackin project aims to reduce flood risk to Keswick through the delivery of natural flood management and nature-based solutions upstream.
They aim to temporarily store approximately 800,000m3 of water using pond and wetland creation, river restoration techniques and reconnecting watercourses with their floodplains.
In addition, the project will provide further flood risk benefit by slowing the flow of water through woodland creation, peat restoration, soil improvements and grassland restoration.
This is modelled to take 10 per cent off the flood peak within Keswick in a 1-in-30 year event and continue to offer protection up to the 2050s taking into account mid-point climate change predictions.
A key criteria of the funding is to support sustainable food production, which doesn’t have to be at the expense of nature. The team are working with farmers to co-design the project to allow farming and nature to go hand in hand; whilst creating new job opportunities along the way, including for local contracting businesses.
Private finance is essential in helping the team deliver this project.
As part of the Resilient Glenderamackin project, they’re exploring ways that they can bring in private finance to help bolster the project and ensure they get the right intervention in the right place, as well as ensuring the long-term success of the project.
Vikki Salas, WCRT assistant project director, said: “This has been a complex and exciting project to develop to date, both in its scope and potential impacts for nature, the community and the land managers and businesses we’ll be working closely with.
"We’ll be breaking new ground and we’re confident that the opportunities through Landscape Recovery will allow us to finalise project development and get going on the ground as soon as possible to urgently address the biodiversity and climate issues this area faces.”
Greg Nicholson, a farmer near Keswick, said: “It’s great to hear West Cumbria Rivers Trust has got funding to develop the Resilient Glenderamackin Landscape Recovery project.
"They’re good to work with and I’m looking forward to finding out more about what we can do together to deliver positive work in the catchment that has wider benefits for nature and reducing flood risk, alongside our farm business”.
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here