A major pollution incident arising from the release of farm slurry into a watercourse in 2023, killing hundreds of fish and other river wildlife led to my involvement in this rewarding project.
The first step was to understand the full impact of this on the stream. With support from the
Wild Trout Trust, we used electro-fishing surveys to monitor the affected stretch of Skeeby Beck, which runs through Gilling West and Skeeby, above Richmond.
The surveys showed that the surviving fish were struggling to repopulate the catchment. One of the major contributing factors was the old concrete ford on Skeeby Beck. Fords, weirs and culverts can easily become part of a river’s landscape, but they can have a significant impact on the movement and health of a watercourse. They can prevent fish and other aquatic life from reaching different parts of a river for breeding, refuge and food. They can also hold water back, slowing its flow and causing fine sediment to settle on the riverbed, smothering gravels and the invertebrates that live there.
The ford at Skeeby Beck was a particularly significant barrier. It diverted the channel through four pipes that fish could not pass through, and covered gravels that provided important feeding habitat.
The farmer and landowner supported removing the ford, provided access to their land for heavy farm and plant machinery could be maintained. Following our initial conversations in February 2024, we secured funding for this complex project from the Environment Agency and later, the Great Yorkshire Rivers project.
