The following email was sent to the 84 subscribers following the Wensum on the 17th Dec 2021.

Dear xxx

Wensum December 2021 Communications

2021 has seen some great movements in the development of the Wensum Catchment Partnership:

A number of significant projects are being delivered within the Wensum Catchment Partnership including:

• Upper Wensum Cluster Farm Group data collection and analysis of water quality,   development of more sustainable farming practices and pond and hedge restoration
• Citizen science – training Riverfly volunteers to monitor the Wensum headwaters, and designing an assessment for increased monitoring across the Wensum catchment
• Farm advice and biodiversity and river enhancement projects through initiatives such as Water Sensitive Farming (Norfolk Rivers Trust)
• Wendling Beck Exemplar Project – a landscape scale nature restoration project covering 2000 acres North of Dereham
• Sculthorpe Moor Community Nature Reserve – managing the reserve creating wetland habitats from open fen, diverting flood peaks, enclosing alluvial woodland and fen on the reserve and introducing beavers
• EA partners have restored some 1.5kms of main river and ditches at Attlebridge
• Landowners have reconnected some 500m of ditch network at Lyng
• The ecology group have a further 500m of connected ditch networks to improve once ground conditions allow at Worthing.
• The ecology group has baselined the Wensum fish stock densities and compared them with two other rivers.

Going forwards into 2022, the WCP will focus on:

Objective: We will aim to put in place a monitoring and improvement plan for the health of the whole of the Wensum Catchment. In order to do so we aim for the following outcomes:

Outcomes:

The full Wensum Catchment is monitored, evidence about catchment health is collected, and targeted improvements are agreed with all WCP members (including organisations, landowners, communities, and other interested parties).

Wensum catchment evidence is monitored and documented in nationally agreed scientific processes and methodology within case studies in order to take to regional and national policy initiatives.

Communications and Engagement: The Wensum Steering Group, with support of the Wensum Catchment Officer and the Steering Group Chair, will work with the Wensum Working Groups (Ecology, Morphology, Water Quality) to coordinate a catchment-scale approach to monitoring.

Communities and volunteers will be asked to engage in supporting the monitoring of the Wensum catchment, alongside the organisations already working on monitoring the Wensum. This will feed into a joint data and evidence-based approach to restoring the health of the Wensum catchment.

Any questions please do reach out to [email protected] who can answer your queries or point you in the right direction.

Best wishes

Wensum Catchment Partnership