River Restoration Opportunity

Project driver

Amenity (place making), nature/biodiversity and removing the need for future desilting

Restoration Type

Habitat enhancement and river restoration from lake

Project description

Kelsey Park lakes are due to be desilted this year and the council have approximately £1.8m to carry out the works. We have proposed to restore the lower lake back into a natural river channel whilst keeping part of the existing lake for its cultural and amenity value. We propose to restore the river on the east side of the smaller downstream lake. This would be suitable for accessibility as the desilting works require access to this side. The new channel would be built using material from the desilting process to create a bund which separates the lake from the new channel. This would run from downstream of the 2.5m-3m waterfall feature and around the edge of the lake, rejoining the channel downstream of the concrete weir structure in the straight section of channel. The new bund would add greenery with the planting of native riparian species. It is likely that silt from the upper lake will be required to form the bund. This would save significant volumes of silt being taken offsite therefore making the project more financially viable. We would like to deliver the larger upstream lake but believe this might be classified as a statutory reservoir, now or in the future. Any water body storing 10,000 cubic meters of water maybe classified as a statutory reservoir and the upper lake may qualify due to its size, depth and current siltation. Restoration here is still possible, however it would require significant engineering considerations which we don’t think could be undertaken in the time available.