Wildlife returns to Pewsey riverside

Wildlife returns to Pewsey riverside
By Nigel Kerton

Just eight months after the completion of restoration work on a stretch of the Salisbury Avon near Pewsey, wildlife is flooding back into the area.

The water is teeming with fish, yellow flag iris and water forget-me-nots are in bloom on the river banks and the presence of water crowfoot growing from the stream bed proves that this stretch of the Avon at East Chisenbury has been restored as a fast-flowing healthy river.

The Wiltshire Wildlife Trust and partner groups carried out the work last October transforming a 600 metre section of the river to revitalise its chalk stream habitat, which is globally rare and in decline.

During the five-week project, the river was reshaped to make the water flow faster and ponds were dug nearby to provide new homes for wildlife including toads, newts and grass snakes.

Project manager Ruth Clarricoates said: “The river is looking lovely.

“Surveys conducted before the work showed there was a poor variety of species at the site, but grayling moved in the day after the improvements were made, and now you can see lots of adult wild trout and the water has been black with young fish.”

The river’s problems stem from the 1960s when it was dredged, making it too wide and slow flowing for wildlife to flourish.

The project reversed this by creating gravel extensions to the banks to act as pinch points, causing the water to flow faster and flush away unwanted fine sands out of the gravel, providing ideal conditions for wildlife.