River Holme Stewardship Flagship Programme

Rivers provide essential green corridors for wildlife. The River Holme is typical of upland Pennine river systems with threats from extensive new building programmes and dense population. The Kirklees BAP outlines 20 species at risk whose survival is dependent on rivers and wetlands. By introducing ‘River Stewardship Flagship Sites’ and implementing the Aire and Calder Catchment Partnership Actionable Plan and recommendations from the Wild Trout Trust’s ‘Trout in the Town’ schema, we will lead by practical example to show how rivers can be best managed for biodiversity throughout our catchment.

We wish to work with land managers at four publicly accessible sites where we will complement their land management practices through habitat improvements, improving water quality and preventing the spread of invasive species. We will use a River Steward to implement this work and co-ordinate the volunteer effort.