SRA Annual Report 2021-22: River Aller ‘Stage Zero’
On its Holnicote estate in West Somerset, the National Trust has set aside land at Selworthy Farm for the trial of an innovative approach to river restoration and habitat improvement. The Trust wants part of the River Aller to flow more naturally, through branching out from being just a single channel to becoming a more complex and dynamic system. It’s an ambition inspired by the success of so-called ‘Stage Zero’ techniques in the US state of Oregon.
The River Aller scheme will be the first time that such techniques have been tried on a main river in England.
The scheme is part-funded by the SRA, and follows on from more than a dozen earlier activities also part-funded by the SRA in the National Trust’s Riverlands Porlock Vale Streams project, which in turn is part of the EU’s Co-Adapt project funded through the Interreg 2 Seas programme.
Benefits are expected to include:
- reduced risks of flooding because of slower flow and the river having more capacity
- reduced risks of drought
- healthier soils
- richer and lusher sward for summer grazing
- bigger and better habitats
- improvements to the special characteristics of Exmoor
Activities in 2021-22
A planning application for this scheme was registered with Exmoor National Park Authority on 28 October 2021. Reference number 6/29/21/119, local parishes Luccombe, and Selworthy and Minehead Without. The application’s 32 documents are full of interest. Notable respondents (13 in total) include Porlock Parish Council, Luccombe Parish Council, a neighbour, and the Exmoor Rivers and Streams Group. The scheme is part of the same Porlock Vale Streams initiative as Tivington Farm.