OUR VISION
By 2043 this leading and innovative partnership approach will have addressed all artificial barriers negatively impacting fish populations in Yorkshire, allowing recovery of our native fish species; helping rivers and their communities to thrive.
ABOUT
Tackling barriers to boost biodiversity.
Between 2009 and 2022, the Environment Agency, local Rivers Trusts, Yorkshire Water, local authorities, and other stakeholders worked in partnership to successfully tackle over 100 barriers to fish in Yorkshire. In 2022, the Great Yorkshire Rivers Partnership of Yorkshire Water, The Rivers Trust and Environment Agency formally came into being with the ambition was to tackle all significant barriers on Yorkshire’s rivers by 2043. This could be by installing a fish pass, but ideally it would be to remove the structure entirely as this brings the most benefit, including:
Allowing all fish species to pass up and downstream
Beginning to restore natural river processes
Bringing improvements in water quality
Improving habitat quality that supports sustainable fish populations and the wildlife that is reliant upon them
Supporting and promoting biodiversity
All in all, removal is the best option for nature and creates a better place for people to enjoy!
Funding secured and how it will be used
The partnership has secured £12.2m in Yorkshire Water’s environment programme for the Asset Management (AMP8) period (2025-30) so that we can offer GYR partners funding for project feasibility studies and concept designs through to detailed design and project delivery to make this ambition a reality.
Delivery partners will need to find some funding too in order to make this happen, and across the 5-year period will need to find over £10m of match contribution, meaning we will be investing in excess of £21m into opening up over 509km of Yorkshire’s rivers.
Some of the funding from GYR will support partners, where they need it, through the process of addressing barriers. This will include training on specialist activities like surveying and project managing barrier removals. We believe that by offering training and support, in addition to project funding, we will build a capability across the partners by skilling them up for projects beyond this initial 5-year cycle.
GYR is facilitating a partners’ network where resources, equipment and expertise is shared across all the GYR partner organisations, as it is only by working together that we will achieve the large number of highly impacting barriers that we need addressed.
Heritage & Wildlife Position Statement
The right solution for all
The partnership recognises the changes that come with barrier removal can impact local communities, their heritage and wildlife.
The positive benefits of opening up stretches of rivers can support greater biodiversity and improving river health through reinstating the natural processes lost when the barrier was built. However, sometimes a barrier has a value to communities and the built heritage.
Partners who are leading our projects are aware of the effects these changes can have and will be fully engaging and consulting with communities, river users and relevant authorities to ensure the right solution is reached for each individual site.