National Trust plans for the Sherborne Brook

As this is the newsletter for the Sherborne Brook Support Group, I think it is important I share this detail below, copied from the Sherborne Parish Council website. As many of you will appreciate this plan potentially affects my property and to avoid conflicts of interest I will not be at the meeting to represent the Brook Group, but rather only myself. As members of the Brook group it is perfectly proper for you to support the NT plans, to be ambivalent about it, or to express your concerns. But please do any of these via the Parish Council at the links given below as the community representatives.

Detail from the PC website as follows:

During June (7th & 11th) the National Trust (NT) hosted two community briefing sessions designed to inform attendees of the Trust’s plans to create a new formal wetland habitat approximately 100 meters east of Waterloo Bridge. The plans provided by the NT are attached for reference, so is the NT’s most recent newsletter (NT Newsletters) which sets out more details and a wider rational for the project.

Both sessions were well attended and the Parish Council would like to thank the hosts for their efforts in communicating the plans and answering the many questions posed by attendees.

Publication of details follows an extensive period of NT led stakeholder consultation including the NT’s own advisors, Historic England, the Environment Agency, and the Gardens Trust. Others too. The scheme has been designed by technical consultants JBA. The briefing sessions were the community’s first opportunity to review the plans and provide feedback.

The wetland creation project is positioned by the NT as a way of mitigating the quantity of silt entering the Upper Broadwater Lake. Two related aspects of a programme of a wider ‘Sherborne Brook Restoration’ initiatives include:

1. Silt run-off from the main road heading downhill from the A40 towards Waterloo Bridge, and then uphill from the Bridge to Clapton-on-the-Hill (approximately one mile on each side of the Bridge).
2. Removal of silt from the historic Upper Broadwater Lake to recreate open water (now completely overgrown following more than a decade of neglect).

However, neither of these are included in the wetland creation planning application due to be submitted to Cotswold District Council.

Following community and riparian landowner feedback, the NT have agreed to host a workshop (July 9th) including the Parish Council, JBA consultants, relevant riparian owners, and representatives of the Sherborne Brook Support Group. An agenda is being developed and will be published here.

In the meantime, if you have specific questions you would like to be addressed by the NT, please email [email protected] by the end of day Monday the 7th^. Questions will be anonymised, and personal data will not be shared.

The resulting Q&A, and wider community commentary, will become part of the Parish Council’s formal response to the forthcoming Cotswold District Council planning process.

Obvious questions so far include:

1. How will the proposed scheme work as a silt management solution if there is no engineered exit for water – silt water in, water with less silt out.
2. If the scheme is designed to enable related works to re-establish meaningful areas of open water (respecting the important historical nature of the designed landscape inherited by the NT), why isn’t it possible to define what the target is?
3. What long-term plans (effort and budget) are there to maintain the scheme without it simply becoming full of silt and overgrown?
4. What impact will the proposed system of diversionary barriers have on the current water levels (already consistently higher due to neglect of the current river and its flow) upstream from the scheme?
5. When will a plan (including the relative roles and responsibilities for the NT and Highways) for road run-off silt be published?
6. Have funds already spent, and those required to complete the proposed scheme (circa £200k,plus ongoing maintenance), been secured separately/in addition to the needs of the ongoing housing renovation plan?