Wildlife boost from Rother restoration

The Environment Agency (EA) has announced the successful completion of the restoration of Costers Brook, near Chichester in West Sussex.

Costers Brook, which is a tributary of the River Rother; rises from clean chalk fed springs at the foot of the South Downs near Midhurst.

The soil in this area is very sandy and because of modern farming methods, silt runs off the land in winter and smothers the bed of the river and its streams; threatening the wildlife that thrives in and relies on habitats like these.

Historically Costers Brook has supported a diverse range of fish species such as trout and bullheads. These species are heavily reliant on clean water and loose gravel to provide them with necessary feeding and spawning areas.

Tarmac Ltd donated 35 tonnes of clean gravel worth £2,000 from their Chichester site. This gravel was positioned at several places on the bed of Costers Brook, in order to provide quality habitats for fish and wildlife, and large logs were used to ‘tighten’ the river to help speed the flow of the water and to clear the silt from the riverbed.

Anglers' rod licence fees have funded the majority of the cost of this project, and the benefit to wild fisheries will be felt far into the future.

The EA worked closely with the Rother Valley Project as well as the landowners that border Costers Brook; the YMCA at Dunford House and the Cowdray Estate, to ensure that the restoration project was completed efficiently.

The Agency is actively seeking partners such as landowners, fisheries and local companies to try to reverse this decline, by supporting projects that give wildlife a helping hand.

EA fisheries specialist Paul Smith said, "A change in farming from grassland to maize crops in fields surrounding the brook has unwittingly resulted in large quantities of sand being washed downstream. This has smothered large lengths of the riverbed. We have studied the area so we can understand the best method to tackle the problem at Costers Brook. As a quick fix we decided to improve spawning areas for fish in order to keep the river ticking over whilst we established a long-term plan.

He added: "This project only took three weeks to complete because we had the support of the landowners, and the benefit to the Brook will be immediate."