]> 2026-04-26T10:46:34+00:00 Case study:Plough Hill Farm Meander and Wet meadow restoration 500 en For more information on this and other projects in Combined Essex catchment Approved Essex Wildlife Trust Great Britain Yes No Yes false Yes This is a small project, total cost is expected to be less than 5k. However, it still has to be treated as if it is a major project. This has led to a very bottom heavy project with a substantially more spent on the consenting process rather than the delivering the project. There is a strong argument to suggest that any river restoration project must be worth the consenting process and smaller projects may not offer value for money. BAP Habitat 52.0121197,0.34446409999998 KierenAlexander Kieren Essex Wildlife Trust Alexander ,, ,,, Fixed point photography will be used to assess vegetation changes and changes in river performance. 13366 Project Site P1020607.JPG 2015-04-06Z 2457118.5 In progress This project furthers the development of the River Pant and builds on the work undertaken at Millfield, Bocking and Ironbridge farm. The aim of all three projects is to target an improvement in the River Pant under the Water Framework Directive. Currently the river is failing under the Water Framework directive. There are a number of overriding issues in this waterbody most notably a heavily modified water body that has become disconnected from the floodplain, phosphate and diffuse pollution input, point source and fish passage. Whilst it is impossible that this project will single handedly turn around this assessment, it will along with the other projects begin to make a difference to this waterbody and start to improve it ecologically and with multi benefits such as flood alleviation seeing improvements. This is a fairly simple intervention and is focused around enhancing existing geomorphological processes such as riffle creation, and sediment deposition. Both are of major benefits to invertebrates, spawning fish and fish fry, which are arguably the key components in any river's ecosystem. We aim to improve the river by opening up an old meander bend. Historically the river would have flowed around this bend but at some point in the past this has been straightened. This has left a relict channel which is partially open at one end. This floods but only infrequently, we aim to connect at one end to allow increased wetting up. This will have a series of effects, it will promote aquatic and emergent vegetation in the derelict channel, it will provide a fish fry refuge at time of high flows and offer some flood alleviation by increasing connectivity with the floodplain and allow silt to settle out of the floodplain. In addition to the above, three pieces of woody debris will be installed which will further kick start geomorphic processes, in this case riffles, bank and bottom erosion and deposition. The woody debris allow pollutants to be filtered out, berms to be created and river flow to be more dynamic. Beyond the works on the river there will also be some hedge planting to connect up the landscape and the river and allow birds and other animals to move freely around the project site and other Work has now been consented and has received planning permission and once the bird breeding season is complete, work will commence. Physical earthworks will take around a week to complete. Plough Hill Farm Meander and Wet meadow restoration plough hill farm meander and wet meadow restoration Yes 50 Combined Essex Anglian Pant pant Plough Hill plough hill 10 - 100 km² 130 100 - 200 m Pant GB105037041180 Habitat and biodiversity Hydromorphology Less than 1 k€ GB105037041180 Pant 2015-08-17Z 2457251.5 2014-07-15T14:26:05Z 2456854.1014468 2015-05-12T14:56:26Z 2457155.1225232 Plough Hill Farm Meander and Wet meadow restoration 500 1 plainlist 5 [[Category:Case study]] [[Project title::!Plough Hill Farm Meander and Wet meadow restoration]] [[Subcatchment title::Pant]] Plough Hill Farm Meander and Wet meadow restoration# QUERY60fda7de835e9657f189d5dfd7e25089