Mersey Basin Campaign Blog

Manchester's Peregrine Falcons are back!

 

Remember the RSPB's team visiting Exchange Square last year to help us keep track of the city's nesting Peregrine Falcons? Well, they're back again! I was eating lunch down there yesterday, and the telescope was attracting a huge audience. This year the RSPB and BBC Manchester have a WEBCAM linked to the big screen so that everyone can keep track of the goings on in Manchester's most exclusive penthouse residence.

Back in the summer of 2007, I interviewed one of the RSPB's information assistants, Sarah Williams about the peregrine falcon project for SourceNW magazine. Download High_rise_heroes. There are similar projects going on in other parts of the country - for example, the first eggs have just hatched over at the Derby Cathedral peregrines' next. Click here to read their blog.

If you'd like to keep track of the peregrines, and much more, you could always follow the RSPB on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/natures_voice

We'll keep an eye out for more news from the Manchester falcons.....watch this space.....

 

MWH Mersey Basin Week 2009 - register now!

 

MWH Mersey Basin Week 2009 is taking place from Friday 2nd - Sunday 11th October, and registration is open NOW for you to enter your events.

Every year during Mersey Basin Week, thousands of local people get involved with practical activities and events on our watercourses. In 2008 nearly 5000 people took part in over 300 events - a figure we'd love to beat this time around!

If you'd like to organise an event (and it can be anything from a towpath tidy to a craft event, a guided walk to a wildlife survey), CLICK HERE to visit our website and download a registration form. You can also access some handy resources to help you plan your activity, and see the highlights of last year's week to get you inspired.

The closing date for registration is Monday 14th September 2009.

If you've got any questions, leave us a comment here, or email our Community Support Coordinator, Bev Mitchell.

Good luck.

Oooh, early preparations for Environment 09!

Just been looking at the design for the Environment 09 packs! Makes it all seem real. They're very smart, anyway :-)

HearManchester.com nominated twice for Big Chip Awards!

 

Hearmanchester.com, a series of audio portraits along the Rochdale Canal in Manchester city centre that we worked on last summer has been nominated TWICE in the forthcoming Big Chip 11 Awards! The project, which was a partnership between Marketing Manchester, the Mersey Basin Campaign, British Waterways, Cityco and Manchester City Council, was developed by our friends at Stardotstar, who are very excited about the project being nominated in both the Best Public Sector and Best Use of Visual Design categories (and so am l!). The ten audio portraits are presented by punk legend John Robb, who meets everyone from councillors to body-poppers, and psychogeographers to pop stars as he makes his way along the towpath. You can even download a handy map for each portrait, giving you the heads up on related destinations around town.

The Rochdale Canal is a bit of hidden gem in the city centre, so even if you thought you were the uber-Manc, we bet you'll discover something new from the trails. Who knows, it could be just the nugget of Mancunian insider knowledge that you'll need to impress your mates down the pub next time you're watching a predictable Federico Macheda wonder-goal on TV.......

http://www.bigchipawards.com/

http://www.hearmanchester.com

ENVIRONMENT 09 is go!

 

Plans for our 2009 mega-conference, Environment 09 are now well underway, and you can help to shape the agenda by submitting a question for the panel. Click on 'comments' below, and leave your question as a comment. We will even print your question off for you if you'd like, so that you can ask it in person on 22nd September.

ENVIRONMENT 09 takes place on 22nd September 2009 at the Arena & Conference Centre, Liverpool.

CLICK HERE TO FIND OUT MORE

Rochdale canal now litter free in Newton Heath!

The end of March signals time for British Waterways annual towpath tidy. Clean-up events are held along the various canal networks to spruce them up before the start of the boating season.

The second event held in Manchester focused on the Rochdale canal as it flows through Newton Heath in East Manchester. The event was organised in partnership with British Waterways, The Waterways Trust and Mersey Basin Campaign with five representatives from the three organisations attending. Five members of the Rochdale Canal Society also kindly gave up their time to come along and volunteer at the event as well.

 

Despite there being practically gale-force winds during the event (litter picking is almost impossible in high winds!), the small team did really well. 15 bin bags full of bank side litter were collected and a large amount was removed by British Waterways from the channel. When the rubbish was taken to the tip, it weighed in at 0.34 tonnes which is a brilliant result especially under the very windy circumstances!

 

 Our haul - very impressive!

 

Thanks are in order to British Waterways and The Waterways Trust for organising the event, to Mersey Basin Campaign for their support and to the members of the Rochdale Canal Society who volunteered their time to help brighten up the Rochdale Canal, it made it a really good event.

British Waterways towpath tidy hits Manchester City Centre!

 

The end of March signals time for British Waterways annual towpath tidy. Clean-up events are held along the various canal networks to spruce them up before the start of the boating season.

 

The first event in Manchester was held on the Rochdale canal in the city centre and was organised in partnership with Mersey Basin Campaign and the Waterways Trust. A total of 9 representatives from the three organisations attended and they were supported by a group of 10 very enthusiastic volunteers from Eversheds law firm.

     

 

  Eversheds conducted the litter pick along the towpaths whilst the members from BW removed litter from the canal channel using their litter boat and scoop nets. Volunteers covered the area between locks 88 and 90 (which works out at about 693 metres) and the dedication of Eversheds meant that the whole area was spotless by the end of the event. Various bits of general litter were collected including bottles, cans and food wrappers, with the majority of litter being hundreds of cigarette ends. In total 27 bin bags of litter were collected from the towpath and the channel, which is a great result!

 

  

 Spotless – not a cigarette end in sight!

 

 Luckily the rain held off during the event and everyone seemed to really enjoy themselves. Everyone  agreed how much nicer that stretch of canal looked and a number of passers by commented on what a great job we had done.

A big thank you to British Waterways, Mersey Basin Campaign and the Waterways Trust for helping to organise the event and an even bigger thank you to Eversheds for their enthusiasm, commitment and for making the event such a success.

Medlock gets a make-over!

On Sunday 22nd March volunteers fom the Lass O'Gowrie pub and operatives from the Environment Agency made their mum's proud by removing litter and debris out of the River Medlock. The clean-up was held on a stretch of the Medlock between Pin-mill Brow and Palmerston Street as this is one of the few points that you can access the river before it becomes completely inaccessible through the city centre.

Yuck!

Lisa Davies the manager of the Lass O'Gowrie had contacted Mersey Basin Campiagn hoping to do something about the litter in the Medlock as her pub faces out onto it and it can be unpleasant for staff and customers looking out over lots of rubbish. We conducted the clean-up upstream of the pub and we hope it will have an effect downstream so Lisa and her team will see less rubbish around their pub.

Working so fast volunteers were a blur!

There was only a small turn-out due to Mother's Day commitments however, 9 large bin bags were collected from the river banks and the Environment Agency removed 2 tonnes of debris from the channel which included lots of fallen logs, wagon wheels and a number of adults and childrens' bicycles! This area of the River Medlock however is a prime spot for flytipping and there is a large amount of litter which still needs to be removed from both the banks and the river channel. I think another clean-up is in order!

Much better - still a lot more to do down there though!

MBC would like to say a huge thank you to EA and the staff at the Lass O'Gowrie for their hard work and support. It was great fun and the reward of pub food and drink afterwards, kindly supplied by the Lass O'Gowrie, made it even better!

Audacious City Church make the Irwell look awesome!

On Saturday 21^st of March, 11 volunteers from the Audacious City Church on Mary Street conducted a litter pick along the Manchester bank of the River Irwell. This site has a notorious litter problem and bank-side litter can easily be blown into the river where it becomes an eye-sore and potential flood risk in the city centre.

 

Before the clean-up - what a mess!

 

In partnership with Mersey Basin Campaign and the Environment Agency, the church group collected 30 large bin-bags full of litter. The EA also removed a significant amount of bank-side scrub vegetation. The litter collected was mainly plastic bags, drinks cans and bottles however, there were some more bizarre items such as lots of odd socks an almost full set of dominoes! 

   Everyone hard at work.

MBC would like to say a huge thank you to the Audacious City Church for volunteering their time to help combat aquatic litter and thank you to the Environment Agency for their support and for disposing of the litter we collected. It was a very enjoyable morning and it really made a difference to the appearance of that stretch of the river.

After the clean-up - absolutely spotless!

Quite a different kettle of fish

As well as raising sea trout the Ribble Catchment Conservation Trust (working with the Environment Agency and an organisation called Crayfish in the Dales) are planning to help another species in the Ribble Catchment.

From July schools could also be raising White Clawed Crayfish.  This endangered species was until recently quite common in the upper reaches of the Ribble, but now our White Clawed Crayfish are under threat from the American Signal Crayfish and pollution.

Simliar tanks to the trout hatcheries will be used to nurture crayfish that can then be reintroduced into streams where they have been lost.  The first tanks will be installed in the Settle area.