Heath Pond – bank stabilisation project
You may have seen this on the pond a little while ago. The Town Council has appointed Five Rivers Environmental Contracting Ltd. to undertake a major project to repair and enhance parts of the pond. To learn more about the project visit the Town Council’s website
This project aims to increase biodiversity in and around the pond and restore areas where the banks have been eroded.
A pond in good health is an incredibly rich and varied habitat for wildlife. When the environmental conditions are right, an array of different plant species grow in abundance, creating a spectrum of aquatic zones in which a myriad of different creatures manage to find the right kinds of spaces to flourish. Unfortunately, the Heath Pond is poor in biodiversity and a mono-culture is developing.
The work of this project includes:
- Renewal and restoration of eroded banks
- Planting of over 1,000 suitable native bank-side plants
- Three peninsula fishing swims
- Coppicing of bank-side willow trees and other trees which excessively shade the pond
- Creation of new two islands, using dredged material and planted with native marginal species
- Pond bed reprofiled in certain areas to create a mosaic of marginal habitat
- Planting in three locations of Phragmites australis to create additional reed-beds
- Replacement boardwalk which is wider, with handrails and passing place
In the photo you can see Five Rivers sub-contractors (C J Gray) doing a sediment survey in preparation for the bank refurbishment and later for constructing two more islands roughly in the area where the floating digger was working. A fish and ecology survey will be done before refurbishment work starts in the 2020.
