River health has been in the news for some time. We understand the public’s concern and we’re going to improve the health of our region’s rivers. This is important to you – and to us too.
In 2023 the Environment Agency (EA) awarded Severn Trent the highest 4-star rating for the fourth year – the regulator’s top grade for environmental performance. This shows our commitment to the environment - and improving river quality in our region is a key part of this.
We hope to maintain this result for 2023 (it’ll be announced in July 2024) for an unprecedented fifth year in a row, which would see us being the only water company to have achieved this.
You want to know that your water company takes this seriously. After all, it means a lot to you and your neighbours. We share your view, which is why river health is a key part of both our short and long-term plans.
After a successful first year, the members of our Independent Advisory Panel have all agreed to remain on our panel to help focus on our programme of investment running up to 2030.The panel was originally made up of six independent experts who meet once a quarter to help us fulfil our five pledges and monitor our progress. This year we wanted to encourage more river users to work with us and we have increased the panel membership to seven.
Green Recovery
We are already investing £387m between 2020 and 2025 on storm overflow improvements and minimising our impact on rivers, and in July 2020, our regulators and some Government departments set water companies the challenge of helping the country's green economic recovery from the pandemic.
From this we've created our £566m Green Recovery programme - the biggest investment of any water company in our green future.
The Green Recovery programme will ensure we deliver a number of creative ‘green’ initiatives across our region, with two key projects focussing on river quality improvements and reducing flooding and the use of storm overflows.
We are investing £78m to improve over 50km of rivers in Warwickshire and Shropshire. This is helping to move two stretches of river, on (the Leam and the Teme,) towards bathing quality and ultimately making them better places to be for everyone, no matter how they use them.
This was something that our customers, communities and other interested groups and local stakeholders wanted to see. To deliver that vision, we are:
In Mansfield we have launched a ground-breaking programme, investing £76m installing sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDs), in a trial that’s never been seen to this scale before in the UK.
This project will help create a blueprint for how we reduce surface water flooding using sustainable solutions and making the town more inviting for residents and biodiversity.
We’re installing rain gardens, swales, detention basins and permeable paving across the town, to slow rainwater down and help prevent the sewer network from becoming overwhelmed.
River Corve
Working with the Shropshire Wildlife Trust, we’ve helped to restore a section of the River Corve, bringing major environmental benefits to this once listed site.
In 1992, the river channel was declared dead as a result of dredging. This had removed habitat-forming structures such as rocks and gravel, as well as causing marginal vegetation to be lost due to the loss of bank variability. Dredging the channel also prevented the neighbouring land from being used as a flood meadow, losing biodiversity and botanical interest, as well as contributing to increased downstream flooding.
Our funding will restore the channel, making it a vital habitat for trout and provide an opportunity to reintroduce white clawed crayfish to support the downstream population at Stanton Lacy, in addition to broader biodiversity gains.
This is a key part of wider river habitat improvement in the area, including work carried out by Slow the Flow on the ‘Wilde’ brook and the large weir removal at the Corve confluence and proposed weir removals downstream. We’re delighted to be playing our part in renaturalising a significant portion of the River Corve.
Biodiversity and Beavers
Over the last few years we’ve worked with Nottinghamshire and Derbyshire Wildlife Trusts to help reintroduce beavers to these counties. Now we’re working with Shropshire Wildlife Trust and Shrewsbury Town Council to bring beavers back to Shrewsbury.
The project will see the trial release of at least two beavers at an enclosed site within Shrewsbury’s Old River Bed, which is a SSSI (Site of Specific Scientific Interest) to assess the impact of these industrious mammals on an existing wetland site.
Beavers are nature’s water engineers. They love to build dams, which reduce the risk of flooding, creating a natural solution to cleaning waterways. This will also help with managing the habitat at the site
Community fund
While we don’t own our region's rivers, we recognise that we have an important role to play in improving river health.
Central to our third Get River Positive pledge is our commitment to use our existing Community Fund to support community groups and charities that are as passionate as us about improving our region’s rivers.
Since launching our Get River Positive focus for the Community Fund in 2022, we’ve already awarded over £278,000 of grants to four brilliant projects across our region that are set to have a positive impact on our region’s rivers.
Working with others
Understanding our rivers better means having clear and accurate data about the specific local environmental challenges our rivers are facing. That means using a variety of methods to collect information.
That’s why we’re delighted to be working with others as part of a ‘Catchment Systems Thinking Cooperative’ (CaSTCo) to revolutionise the way crucial data about England and Wales’ water environment is gathered and shared.
Working with a range of environmental charities such as the Severn Rivers Trust, other water companies and academia, this project will establish the best ways to test and share data about the health of our rivers. ‘Demonstrator Catchments’ are looking at different aspects of river health and ways of testing to establish a standardised set of tools and training.
As part of our support of this national project we’re working with Severn Rivers Trust and the Environment Agency on the River Teme in Shropshire and Worcestershire. We’re also looking at methods to test for bacteriological content that’s harmful to human health in the Teme – an area we know is popular for swimming and other river-based leisure activities.
By trialling a range of different training and equipment at different times of year we hope to establish clear tools and guidance to share back with this national partnership.