10th November 2017

Bradford Environmental Education Service plant more young trees to stabilise the bank and provide habitat. These trees willl eventually act as a barrier to the large logs - whole trees in fact - which are brought downstream when the river is in flood. In recent years whole trees have lodged on the bridge. Now, they might not get that far.

1st November 2017

The Forest of Bradford team and the completed living willow wall with the lower tier now filled in with earth. All that remains to do is to take off the blue string and take their tools away. Tools? Loppers, crowbar, sledge hammer, a post driver, some saws, spades, rakes and a wheel barrow.

1st November 2017

It's looking near completion but here Matt is weaving short pieces of willow into any spaces, to make sure the wall is as dense as we can make it. Notice the brash infill.

1st November 2017

The chaps are cutting the posts down so they don't stick up. Notice the weaving is three one way, three the other. The blue string is to mark the height of infill needed. Earth came from what Simon Thornton had dug with his digger as well as more from the bank to make a smoothly domed profile.

27th October 2017

Scenic view of leading end. The spiling is woven into the river bank to make a smooth transition from bank to basketwork.

24th October 2017

Tadaa! Two tiers of willow spiling. The infill is brash and then covered with earth which is trodden down to make it firm.

22nd October 2017

Heavy rain brought high water but work continued. Matthew, John and Ian start weaving in the lengths of willow. The lengths were woven into place and pressed down to the river bed using the technigue of standing on them. There's our post driver bottom left.

Hand tools! We took a very gentle approach to the river banks to avoid unnecessary disturbance. Machinery would have done too much damage and destabilised the banks.

18th October 2017

Forest of Bradford volunteers start driving in fence posts, 1m apart. Initially a pilot hole is made using a crowbar. The posts are then sunk by hand to a minimum depth of 18 inches into the river bed. A big bloke called Josh worked without much rest for several days driving in about 90 posts. Our Wendy (5'3") had a go but couldn't actually lift the post driver.

16th October 2017

Volunteers from Santander Bank cut willow Salix Viminalis at Yorkshire Water's land near Esholt. This willow hybrid was developed for biomass. It is fast growing and grows straight and so is ideal for weaving into our river bank structure and then reliably sending out roots to bind the river bank.

A huge thank-you to the staff at Santander who chose to do this work on one of their corporate volunteer days.

4th September 2017

Forest of Bradford arranged learning and volunteering activities for Bradford and Bingley Canoe Club which leases the eroded zone. The club would acquire an appreciation of the habitat created and some skills to manage it in the future.

Here is Phil Sheridan of the River Fly Monitoring Project showing members of Bradford and Bingley Canoe Club and interested visitors how to sample river fly larvae. The tiny creatures that live on the river bed are sensitive indicators of changes to their environment and indicate pollution events. Collelct a sample, identify it and put it back.

7th August 2017

Simon Thornton with his big digger finishing off re-profiling the bank along the 45m stretch of worst erosion. The once vertical bank now slopes at about 30 to 40 degrees. The bank has to be cut back so that the slope is made of the most compact earth. An added slope would wash away very easily. The work took about 14 hours with one man, a digger and dumper truck. The excavated earth was laid to create a gentle slope up to the bridge which would protect the pier should the river rise that high.

Vertical sandy river banks can be habitat to sand martins. The banks have suffered so much damage over recent years that there were no burrows in them.

Spiling model

Built to show passers-by on the Millennium Way what we were building. Kids added layers of weaving to it. Aaaaaaw!

The spiling solution: a profile

The solution is to sacrifice some land to create a gentle slope that will allow flow to wash up it rather than batter against it. Willow, which will root quickly and grow, will be woven along the banks and low scrub vegetation encouraged beween the rows of willow. Roots will bind the soil, foliage will slow down the flow in high levels and the basketwork will act as a protection while nature establishes itself. The whole thing will create new habitat as well as protecting the bank.

Site plan

Summer 2016, an arial image from Google. It shows the river flowing towards the right where the bridge is. The meander is clearly visible in the lower half of the image, heading towards the bridge.

2015 December bridge threatened

14th December 2015 at BD16 1LT . Standing on the Millennium Way looking towards the Bailey bridge you can see how an eroding scoop on the river bank is progressing downstream. That's the way meanders travel! It's threatening the bridge pier. The bank is vertical and relatively soft compacted silt.

November 2015 bank erosion

2015 November. Bank erosion at BD16 1LT looking upstream from the Bailey bridge at the sports fields. The Millennium Way runs along this river bank. You can see how water pressure has pushed back the turf in places and in other places where the bank has eroded, turf has held the soil in place but it is left dangling down the bank. Such is the power of vegetation roots to bind soil.