Great Yorkshire Rivers - Removing Barriers to Fish Passage

Project Overview

Addressing barriers to fish passage across the Yorkshire Dales Rivers Trust catchments

A woman stood by a stream taking notes and looking at a small stone ford in the stream.

Restoring fish passage throughout Yorkshire

Great Yorkshire Rivers was formally created in 2022 following previous collaborative work tackling more than 100 barriers to fish passage in Yorkshire since 2009. Made up of a partnership of the Environment Agency, Yorkshire Water and several Rivers Trusts including YDRT, it has the ambition of tackling all significant barriers on Yorkshire’s rivers by 2043.


Within our catchments of the Rivers Swale, Ure, Nidd, Ouse and Wharfe we are assessing all barriers to fish passage, creating a prioritised list of those for removal or mitigation to help fish reach valuable upstream spawning habitats. In parallel we are also focusing on quick wins, as well as working with amenable landowners to get projects started on the ground.


The removal of Skeeby Beck near Richmond, a tributary of the River Swale, is an example of the successful removal of a barrier to fish passage. We will keep this page updated with further examples of this projects work.


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