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River Improvement - The Future is Brighter on the Darwen

By FishingMagic 09/02/2012 12:08:00

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The River Darwen at Shorey Bank

The future's looking brighter for the River Darwen as the Environment Agency is set to remove a culvert from the river.

The 117m long culvert is covering the river at Shorey Bank, Darwen, near Blackburn, Lancs and is preventing fish and other wildlife from flourishing. As part of the improvement works, which will also help to prevent flooding in the area, the Environment Agency will remove the roof and uncover the river, before shaping the sides and bottom of the river to create habitat for wildlife and improve access to the river for maintenance and recreation.

Tony Callaghan, Environment Agency Project Manager, said:

“Removing this culvert is one small step in our plans to transform more than 9,500 miles of rivers in England and Wales by 2015 – the equivalent of the distance between the UK and Australia.

Our rivers are the healthiest for 20 years, but we are doing even more to further improve water quality and biodiversity. This area of Darwen is home to a very rare plant called Narrow Small Reed which is only found at four sites in England. By removing the culvert it will give more space and light for this plant to flourish and will also allow brown trout to travel further up and down the river.”

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Comments (2 posted):

Frank Elson on 09/02/2012 13:12:02

This could be good news for locals like myself. Mostly the Darwen is shallow with shopping trolleys, tyres and the like, thrown in. But there are a couple of small pools dotted around, with perch and small trout. Lower down, out of town, the river is full of chub. Now, if the work makes the river deeper, and perhaps a bit slower, the chub might move upstream. United Utilities is also building one of those underground chambers (like in London but, I suspect a bit smaller) to help keep sewage out of the Darwen. Still, I won't hold my breath :-)

Frank Elson on 11/02/2012 12:52:16

From our local paper website: Culvert removed from the River Darwen to save rare plant (From Lancashire Telegraph) Interestingly, a factfile from the newspaper isn't on the website. Amongst other facts about this rare reed it says: "In 2000, the reed was almost destroyed when it was inadvertently covered by 0.5 metres of debris removed from the bed of the River Darwen as a result of works by the Environment Agency" ... you couldn't make it up !

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