Story here:
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-hereford-worcester-55193809 

The implications for us are that if whoever responsible gets away with it, it will cast a shadow over our protested sites.

I shall be watching this closley.

Problem is that if all it ends with as some silly fine, then many will consider it a price worth paying. Not good enough.

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Scumbags. Though I can't work out what on earth they're trying to do. It was on the TV news too. Hopefully the fine will be colossal and bankrupt them.

And to think I've been waiting for six months for permission from a landowner to break one small rock in half, and still got no answer. It is the Duchy, but they can't be that busy...

My reward for my patience will be in heaven, no doubt :angel:

Any idea what the reason behind the work was?
We carry out all sorts of "consented" river works and costal works, often on behalf of EA/NRW and the control measures we employ are expensive and time consuming. The cost of doing it correctly.
This type of thing usually results in a fine of circa £15-20k for works where consents and permits were not even applied for and where wildlife has been harmed. Half that for permitted works where control measures were either not in place or were inadequate or failed.
I've come close on one occasion about 12 years ago when a concrete pump hose split and spewed about half a metre of concrete into a watercourse. White river / brown trousers.

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I would hazard a guess at some land reclamation for some purpose, which included 'moving' the river out of the way.

Problem is that all comes down to money and that possible fines were taken into the overall costing, its an attitude that has to be broken.

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Interesting to see it being discussed on the farming forums. Lots of people saying what a good and tidy job it is.

General view is that it is to prevent local flooding. A snippet from the Parish Council says that the EA advised the bank needed re-profiling and would look to the landowner to do the work. Hard to know what to believe.

The farmers seem to be generally supportive and have a dim view of the EA. Some saying he had permission and the EA will end up looking foolish.

It does seem to be an epic blizzard of bureaucratic bullsh*t.
Give it a few years and you would never know it happened. Like most other 'environmental catastrophe/armageddon/distaster', pick hyperbolic word of your choice, nature very quickly moves back in.

Chris.

It does seem to be an epic blizzard of bureaucratic bullsh*t.
....few years and you would never know it happened...

nature very quickly moves back in.

That's the unofficial view that most farmers, contractors and older NRW officers have. Quietly get on with it but carry out your "management" continuously, don't wait and do it all in one hit once every ten years.
When the river looks like chocolate milkshake 2 miles downstream it's going to draw attention.
Give it a bit of sympathetic tidying every now and then and it goes under the radar.
Don't have time to research this particular case but often farmers are hammered because their stock, cattle in particular, churns up the river banks when the come down to water.
Erodes the river bank and allows slurry run-off to enter the watercourse, keeps overgrowth down and aids drainage thus moving the problem down stream. If they tidy it up to make stock access easier they are accused of environmental vandalism.

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I appreciate and respect the differing opinion on this.

Here is a link to the wildlife trust which gives more complete picture including some possible consequences.

https://www.herefordshirewt.org/news/horror-destruction-nationally-important-uk-river 

My common sense tells me that as far as flooding issues are concerned, a problem my have been removed from one place and deposited in another on a larger scale.

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Interesting to see it being discussed on the farming forums. Lots of people saying what a good and tidy job it is.

General view is that it is to prevent local flooding. A snippet from the Parish Council says that the EA advised the bank needed re-profiling and would look to the landowner to do the work. Hard to know what to believe.

The farmers seem to be generally supportive and have a dim view of the EA. Some saying he had permission and the EA will end up looking foolish.

All carried out before the start of the salmonid fish spawning season. That's always a condition of EA/NRW consents.

Wouldn't be at all surprised if EA had consented it and then the "trust" / do-gooders see red. :lol:

What a world we live in; much more important than any global pandemic that may come along :lol:

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I quote from that article:
"The River Lugg, in Herefordshire, one of the most beautiful and important rivers in the UK, has been intentionally destroyed..."

And from the dictionary:
"Destroy: end the existence of (something) by damaging or attacking it."

Well sorry but it still looks like a river to me. The wildlife for a whole mile of a 45 mile river has been given a serious hammering. That is quite different from destroying a river..!

I think a sense of perspective is required here.

Chris.

Area of Cain now, where Cordite was 'disposed' of having been removed from Croesor in the early 1970's...

Still waiting for Nature to quickly move back in.

[photo]121838[/photo]

Until the bottom line is filled in we cannot draw bottom line conclusions, however;

1/ SSSI is for purpose and if, even in 'worthy cause' someone can ride a coach and horses through it simply regarding a fine as a cost overhead then we may as well not have that legislation and it also bodes ill for other sites. So someone wants to use land for offroading, and it just happens to be a SSSI. What then?

2/ I know nothing about this sort of thing other then what my intelligence tells me, but any scheme such as this would need correct and careful planning with regard to possible consequences, such as the effects down stream, runoff from the new embankments and a lot of other things.

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You have got to laugh. This is a quote from the farmer who carried out the work:
"'It was up to the Environmental Agency to look after these rivers but they don't do any work and haven't got any money to do the work because they spend it all on clipboards."

:lol::lol::lol:

Chris.

So much then for the farming industry mantra, “Guardians of the Environment”.

Not that most gave it any credence.

Have they damaged the geology ?

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Funnily enough I contacted the EA six months ago about the first fish ladder on the River Sheaf in Sheffield being completely blocked by cobbles and gravel from floods, and offering to help shift it in my spare time - as salmon are now in the River Don just downstream of Rotherham it seems a good idea to keep the upstream passages clear, and I have waders.

Needless to say I was asked not to do that, for insurance and liability reasons - and no doubt the risk of Weil's disease. The guy did say they would look at it, but so far they haven't done anything. It probably is a bit mental with Covid and so on, so I can't say whether they just binned it or it is 'on the list', but it's frustrating to see when it's so productive. It would take a couple of people about a day to do it.

I watched brown trout spawning last week a few hundred metres upstream - right outside the Wolf safety lamp factory, ironically 😉

First half-decent flood will carry off most of that "profiled" riverbank. Whoever thought up doing it like that must have given up thinking for Lent.

So they've just relocated some soil with no stabilisation apart from 'patting' it down with a jcb bucket? Now that there are no roots to bind the riverbank, that's going to be heading down to the Wye.

The report also alleges the 'river gravel' has been removed, wonder what now constitutes the 'new' river bottom?

The plot thickens
https://yourherefordshire.co.uk/all/news/news-river-lugg-farmer-had-planning-permission-refused-for-new-homes-earlier-this-year/?fbclid=IwAR3O6jDlJq7nDGjIbkXSyJ6HzrJws4okgKciQVCKiTt-a063-mrNBUNcVZ4 

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