Work starts on the River Ash on a stretch of the river near Wareside on 15 August, tackling the first kilometre out of seven planned for restoration work, instigated by Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust (HMWT) in partnership with the Easneye Estate. This project is funded by the Government's Green Recovery Challenge Fund. The fund was developed by Defra and its Arm's-Length Bodies and is being delivered by The National Lottery Heritage Fund in partnership with Natural England, the Environment Agency and Forestry Commission.

The work, which is expected to take three weeks and requires heavy machinery, will improve the Ash’s resilience to low flows and the impacts of climate change, which are major problems facing Hertfordshire’s rare chalk rivers.

Over 600m of river bank will be lowered and 60 tonnes of gravel put back into the river bed to address the historic impacts that dredging has had on the river. Ponds and connected ditches will create new refuge areas and woody habitat will provide cover around the edges of the river. This will improve the prospects for a range of wildlife that the river supports, including native wild brown trout and critically endangered water voles.

At the same time as the River Ash work gets underway, a group of volunteers from the Friends of the Rib & Quin community organisation will be working with others from the HMWT and Environment Agency to carry out a smaller scale habitat creation project on the River Quin, in the parish of Braughing. The margins of the river will be planted up with native flowering plants, alongside introducing woody habitat features to provide shelter for fish, such as, brown trout, small mammals and a range of insects, like dragonflies. The volunteers, who strive to improve the plight of rare chalk rivers in their area, are adding skills to their community, having undergone practical river restoration training with the Trust.

For ten years, HMWT has been delivering its Living Rivers project and acting as a host of the River Lea Catchment Partnership bringing together and supporting others to restore local rivers. Over that time, the Trust and its partner organisations have delivered restoration projects to improve habitat conditions for wildlife, including endangered plants, mammals and fish. Chalk rivers such as the Ash and the Quin are extremely rare and there are less than 250 of these unique habitats world-wide. It is hoped that these latest measures will turn the tide from deteriorating to flourishing on our most biodiverse rivers.

Sarah Perry, River and Catchment Coordinator at HMWT said:

After years of preparation and partnership effort, I’m so pleased to see work begin to restore the River Ash and Quin. Without our intervention backed by local communities, landowners and funders, our rivers would continue to struggle against climate change, low flows and poor habitat quality as a result of historic activity. We want to see our native iconic wildlife, like water voles and wild brown trout, thriving along chalk rivers and are helping to create this future by undertaking this restoration work.”

For anyone wanting to get involved in improving their local chalk river, please contact sarah.perry@hmwt.org