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PROJECT PORTFOLIO

A selection of some of our current and recent project contracts.

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This major NFM programme for South Cumbria Rivers Trust,  is our most complex one to date. We are currently developing an innovative portfolio of over 12 projects in the Kent catchment, Cumbria. The Kent suffered from the impacts of severe flooding during Storm Desmond in 2015. Projects range from landscape to townscape and are part of the Defra / Environment Agency funded NFM programme. The programme requires:

  • Scoping Briefs and walkover surveys

  • Design and modelling

  • Flood Risk Assessments / Permits

  • Ground Investigations

  • Extensive consultation with landowners, communities and consenting authorities.

  • Groundworks

The village of Flimby suffers from surface flooding caused by overwhelmed and constricted drainage systems that flow through and under the coastal habitation. The project was developed with West Cumbria Rivers Trust and funded by Environment Agency and Defra’. The brief was to create a variety of leaky dams in the woods above using onsite materials. This minimised cost and meant heavy machinery was not required to move materials onto or around the site.


The image shows one of our innovative NFM interventions designed to slow the flow by increasing channel roughness through the accumulations of coarse woody debris during spate events. This involved using larch felled onsite to construct 15 leaky dams that work at different points of flow to slow and capture high flows respectively.


The site is being monitored by  West Cumbria Rivers Trust (remote video) and Lancaster University (NERC Q-NFM) using a flow gauging station. It was used at the recent conference hosted by the BHS ‘does natural flood management work?’ as a case study.

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This  project was developed with West Cumbria Rivers Trust and funded by The Greggs Foundation. The brief for the site was to create a variety of structures using materials onsite to offer a showcase of options and techniques whilst thinning the woodlands to provide better understory and structure. Three dams were created in two styles.


1.     Low impact large woody debris installation, creating interlocking debris with cable fail-safe’s.


2.     Live willow structures, locally coppiced and woven to create strong, effective leaky dams that have an indefinite life span.


The site continues to be monitored and modified when high flows are observed.

This was a complex project involving a number of interventions on a compact site, involving


  • 1000 cubic meter run-off attenuation feature,

  • Four surface flow pathway disruption solutions 

  • Three 40-60ft leaky dams. 

The project was developed for South Cumbria Rivers Trust and funded by Environment Agency and Defra.

The site is being monitored with water level loggers, fixed point and time delay photography to support NERC Q-NFM and Defra research projects.

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