Wessex Water’s biodiversity action plan (BAP) Partners programme, which provides funding to projects that benefit the environment, will be supporting four major projects who will receive between £15,000 and £20,000 annually over the next five years.
Now in its fifth phase, the projects in the programme are:
1. Restoring an extensive area of coastal and floodplain grazing marsh on the North Somerset Levels and Moors close to the centres of Bristol and Weston-Super-Mare.
2. Protecting chalk streams via the Dorset Wild Rivers project - in phase five the scheme will take a catchment approach to deliver biodiversity enhancements that support the water environment in Dorset. This will involve targeted restoration and recreation of habitat that improves water quality and flood storage. During the last Partners Programme the project successfully delivered more than 14 km of chalk stream restoration and 29.5 hectares of wet woodland planting.
3. Work with Wiltshire Wildlife Trust on the Wessex Chalk Streams Project which aims to improve the natural status of the River Avon by delivering habitat improvement works is ongoing. The funding will help the trust complete 11 river restoration projects on the Upper Avon and Wylye, resulting in 7.5km of chalk stream and floodplain restoration.
4. Work with the South Wiltshire Farmland Bird Project - over the next five years the project will bring together farmers to help deliver environmental improvements on the ground alongside a pollution solutions project which will involve providing farmers with the equipment and skills to test water flows on their land. Both the Partners Programme and Wessex Water’s grid scheme have been supporting the South Wiltshire Farmland Bird project, which to date has resulted in 147 farms receiving one-on-one advice, helping to improve more than 1000 hectares of farmland bird habitat and produce several mitigation schemes for the grid project.
Dave Jones, regulatory scientist at the water company, said:
"The four projects we have chosen complement our work to improve water quality, our catchment partnerships and our biodiversity action plan, which sets out how we engage with wildlife throughout all our activities,"
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