Good news on the River Tas through the Forncetts

The river goes into the winter in a much improved condition thanks to work by the Environment Agency completed in mid November. They used two excavators – one a giant 18-tonne machine with a 13-metre reach – to clear an enormous volume of silt, vegetation, and fallen trees and other debris from the river from Tharston Mill, through Horsenford up to Station Road, and then upstream to Wacton.

Their work team were themselves surprised by just how much silt had accumulated, blocking the channel width to a few feet in long sections of the river. The final challenge was a large willow tree lying beneath the water and partly blocking the river towards Horsenford. The branches were removed and a channel dug behind the tree to help the flow at this stage.

The clearance has made a vast difference to the flow of water generally, lowering the river level by several feet. We shall see the difference when we have heavy rainfall, greatly helping the water to get away along this whole stretch.

 

Talking to the team, they clearly see the need to maintain the river in a healthy state regularly cutting back the reeds and de-silting every few years, as apparently happened before many years of neglect. The Environment Agency says the state of the river too ‘should set the standard for keeping it in a good condition’, and that classifying it now as a ‘high risk’ rather than ‘medium risk’ stream will help in funding future maintenance and that it would like to have access culverts installed over certain ditches and is seeking funding for this to reduce the cost of weed clearance in the future.

The Agency is seeking our feedback on the work. I would welcome any comments - positive or negative - to report back. You can reach me, Roger Ranson, by fax 0845 402 6528, e-mail or phone 0780 308 6462

Comments about this much needed improvement may also be sent to the editors of the Forncett Flyer.