River Wandle restoration works

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The River Wandle is a degraded chalk river now within a predominately urban catchment in south-west London. The Wandle Trust, a charitable trust dedicated to the improvement of the river, planned to carry out extensive restoration works along the length of the Carshalton branch of the river, which has a legacy of water-powered riverside mills. To improve trout movement and flows within the watercourse it was planned to reduce or remove several weirs along this branch and to strategically place anchored logs at several locations to act as deflectors and to promote localised scoring of the river bed, as well as the creation of low level brash cover within sheltered bays to improve fish fry habitat.

Prior to work commencing surveys of the aquatic flora and invertebrate fauna of the river were required in order to assess the presence of uncommon species and communities that could potentially be impacted by the works and to provide base-line data against which future changes in the flora and fauna, resulting from the restoration work, could be monitored.