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Aggregate supplier Lafarge is working with the Environment Agency and a number of other organisations on a £20,000 project to create a haven for river life in the National Forest.
The scheme, a partnership between the EA, Forestry Commission, Lafarge and the Sence Valley Volunteer Trust, aims to transform an artificially engineered section of the River Sence into a more visually appealing, habitat rich watercourse.
The river has been widened in places, meanders created, banks reprofiled and tree roots and gravel added to the channel to give the 600m stretch of river a more natural look and flow.
Around 100 tonnes of river gravel, donated from Lafarge’s nearby Swarkestone Quarry, was used to provide better habitat for river flies and improved spawning conditions for brown trout.
The scheme has also seen a series of ponds and scrapes created across the site, and material dug from the river channel has been used to shallow the lake margins, so reedbeds can be formed.
An earth-mound viewing platform will enable visitors, including families with buggies and the disabled, to look out across the new river channel and adjacent lake.
