At Bintry Mill we have always pursued a policy of ongoing habitat improvement to the river and its banks for the benefit of the wild fish population. Historically most of this has been funded from members’ contributions and much of the hard work has been carried out by our enthusiastic corps of unpaid volunteers, although we have received some additional funding from third party organisations. We have worked closely with The Environment Agency, Natural England and the Norfolk Rivers Trust in the past to improve the river, deal with pollution incidents and maintain the water in good order.
We have received Environment Agency approval for our latest channel improvement project, a bed raising exercise designed to create new fish spawning gravels, speed up flows to a significant stretch of river and create variation and fry refuges. This will be our most ambitious project to date and follows on from a similar improvement carried out two years ago, and which has proven very successful.
When completed, the new gravel spawning beds will look similar to those below, once the bankside vegetation has had a chance to grow. We anticipate carrying out the work in the autumn of 2025. Major projects like this are constrained by the bird and bank vole nesting season, which can carry on through the summer, and the trout spawning season which usually begins in late Autumn or early Winter. This leaves a short window of opportunity, which in turn limits the potential scale of such projects.
