The Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) announced today (Wednesday, May 8) that £11.5 million in extra funding is to boost tree planting, habitat restoration and flood management across England.
The funding, which will include money from the Nature for Climate Fund, will also unlock up to an extra £11.5 million from organisations bringing the total possible investment to £23 million.
This uplift will be allocated to local catchment partnerships through the Water Environment Improvement Fund (WEIF) supporting 180 local projects across England.
Projects to be funded this year include the Limestone Becks River Restoration project in Lincolnshire, Phase II of The York Urban Becks project, and The Woods for Devon project.
The additional funding is expected to lead to an additional 300km of English rivers being protected, and to support the creation and restoration of around 160 hectares of inland and coastal waters.
Chair of the Environment Agency, Alan Lovell said:
“We welcome this uplift in funding for local projects across the country which will help us work collaboratively with a range of organisations and stakeholders to achieve our ambitions for the water environment.
“It builds on the steps we are taking to improve water quality which includes increased water company inspections this year, along with our powers to levy uncapped penalties on those who pollute our waterways,” Lovell said.
The £11.5 million funding uplift is in addition to the existing £3 million the Environment Agency has already been allocated for this financial year for local project to improve water quality.
Catchment partnerships
Catchment partnerships take a collaborative approach to improving river quality and enhancing biodiversity at a catchment level, using local knowledge and expertise.
They bring together government, local authorities, landowners, local eNGOs, regulators, farmers, academia, local businesses and water companies.
Water Minister, Robbie Moore MP said that these local catchment partnerships do “excellent work” and he is pleased to be able to give additional funding to help deliver projects where rivers need it most.
“Increased funding is a very important ingredient in the recipe for successfully restoring our rivers to good health and so this is welcome news,” CEO of The Rivers Trust, Mark Lloyd said.
He added that the Trust is increasingly seeing private sectors getting involved to match “this kind of funding” which enables the government support to go even further.
