The Evenlode Catchment

The River Evenlode rises out of the limestone that underlies the , flowing south-east towards the clay vales of the . The catchment contains 16 river water bodies including the Evenlode, and major tributaries the Glyme and Dorn. The landscape in this catchment is some of the finest in the county, including the Cotswolds AONB, Sites of Special Scientific Interest, Conservation Target Areas and the World Heritage Site of Blenheim Palace. It has many important habitats, including beech woods and limestone grasslands, lowland meadows and fen, which support a wide range of wildlife. Species present include remnant populations of our nationally endangered native crayfish, water voles and tree sparrows. Why A Catchment Partnership? The river habitat and fish populations in the Evenlode catchment are degraded through a combination of historical channel modification and pollution (sediment and phosphate) from waste water and rural areas. In many places rivers been over-deepened, widened and straightened, resulting in uniform channel morphology, a river divorced from its floodplain and extensive in-channel siltation. There are also numerous weirs, (35 on the Glyme), impounding the flow and creating barriers to fish movement. The combined impacts leave the catchment vulnerable to flooding and pollution and contribute to reduced water quality, biodiversity and fisheries interest. Aims The Partnership aims to facilitate improvements in water quality, enhance biodiversity, flood management, resilience to climate change and build greater community engagement with the local rivers, at local and greater landscape delivery scales. Current projects include:

 River Glyme restoration between Stratford Bridge and Woodstock Water Meadows: a collaborative project bringing together multiple funding sources and partners, including Thames Water, Environment Agency, the Wychwood Project, local landowners including Blenheim Estate, The Cotswolds Fly Fishers and Cotswolds Rivers Trust.  Restoration and future management of Woodstock Water Meadows  Combe Mill as an outdoor laboratory/education site

 Supporting the Cotswolds Rivers Trust / Cotswolds Seeds Honeydale Farm project as a demonstration site for flood attenuation and biodiversity enhancements  Developing citizen science projects to combine community collected data with research and development projects. For example the Totally Thames Water Blitz, which ran across the entire Thames River basin, collecting data on phosphate and nitrates in water bodies and combining it with long-term data held by the Environment Agency and the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology. We are working with several other organisations to develop landscape-scale strategies with projects that will deliver land and water benefits across the whole of the upper Thames tributaries. Who Are We? A collaborative partnership bringing together local knowledge and expertise to deliver cost-effective improvements to water environments across the catchment. Hosted and co-ordinated by Wild Biodiversity Manager, Hilary Phillips, the core working group and expertise is currently:

 Hilary Phillips, Wild Oxfordshire. Biodiversity, communications, fund raising, education, coordination.  Sharon Williams. Wychwood Project. Volunteer / landowner coordination, fund-raising and events.  Vaughan Lewis. Windrush AEC. River restoration, technical advice, project management and delivery.  Paul Orsi. Sylva Foundation. Forestry and land management.  Anne Miller. University of . Ecosystems functioning.  David Gasca. Atkins. Hydroecology, monitoring, education.  Jen Hurst. Combe Mill. Education.  Jo Old, Environment Agency, Evenlode Catchment River Projects Co-ordinator.  Janice Bamsey. District Council. Senior Policy Planner. River Champions We are still developing as a partnership and welcome new members – why not become a River Champion to register your support? There’s no cost to this but it will help us to identify common threads of interest across the catchment and to demonstrate support of our aims and objectives when applying for funding. To find out more please contact Hilary Phillips [email protected] 01865 407034