River Mease restoration: ‘If we can get it right here, we can do it everywhere’

“A noisy river is a healthy river,” said Ruth Needham of the Trent Rivers Trust. The River Mease in the Midlands gurgles merrily along, sunlight glinting off riffles and shoals of fry darting past. Needham filmed the tiny fish, saying, “My colleagues will be jumping for joy to see them!”

Needham has reason to be buoyant. The Mease last month won the UK River Prize 2026, established by the River Restoration Centre in 2014, recognizing the trust’s 13-year restoration campaign. “The prize has been a massive boost,” she said. “If we can get the Mease into better condition, we can improve other rivers, too.”

“We wanted to get people to work together,” said Ruth Needham of the Trent Rivers Trust.

Britain’s rivers are in a sad state, highlighted by the Channel 4 drama “Dirty Business” and the sewage crisis. Pollution is not the only issue; rivers have been altered almost beyond recognition by human hands – straightened, strengthened, deepened and sped up – with catastrophic consequences.

The Mease is a case in point. The 27-kilometer lowland river rises in Leicestershire, passes through Derbyshire and Staffordshire, and flows into the Trent at Croxall. More than 400 farmers dot its banks. Food production has long been the priority, with the river seen as an inconvenience to be controlled or “straitjacketed,” as Needham put it. “For too long, water has been seen as a problem: drain it, dredge it, get it away,” she said.

“Water needs space,” said Needham, referring to the River Mease near Measham.

Rivers are not straight trenches like canals; they meander, merge, and overflow into natural channels. “Water needs space,” Needham said. Wetlands around rivers are paradise for wildlife but purgatory for farmers, being unpredictable and unproductive.

Over the past 150 years, drainage ditches were engineered along the Mease, its banks shored up, flow controlled with weirs. Excess water no longer diffused across floodplains. “A lack of connectivity between river and floodplain is seen across the board in lowland agricultural areas,” Needham said. “We’ve been draining our land for 150 years – we’ve got too good at it. It drains so well that you get flood peaks downriver, causing a massive problem for villages. Climate change is only making it worse.”

Tony Thorp, a farmer who worked with the TRT to restore a tributary of the Mease that runs through his land.

Soil, silt, and sediment washed from fields into the river, causing high phosphate levels and algal blooms that blocked light and reduced oxygen. “The fish really struggled,” Needham said, including rare species like spined loach and European bullhead that make the Mease a Site of Special Scientific Interest. Other wildlife declined due to lack of natural habitats. “The state of the river was no longer acceptable,” she said.

In 2013, a restoration project began, led by the Trent Rivers Trust and funded by the Environment Agency. “We wanted to change the status quo, force the issue and get people to work together,” Needham said. The biggest challenge was getting farmers to give up land for buffer strips, requiring trust-building and compensation applications under government schemes.

“Slow the flow, get the habitat right and the species will come.”

So far, 111 farmers have joined, covering just over half the catchment area. Jo and Tony Thorp of Culloden Farm in Leicestershire worked with the TRT to restore a 500-meter tributary. Instead of being diverted into ditches, the water now meanders slowly across the field, trapping pollutants and forming wetland habitat for birds like the sedge warbler.

On a spring visit with Adam Noon, an Environment Agency catchment coordinator, the stream established last year shows algae growing where pollutants are trapped and wetland bursting with life. Noon spots birds like little ringed plover, reed bunting, yellowhammer, and green woodpecker. “Slow the flow, get the habitat right and the species will come,” he said. They spotted two hares.

Jan Cope, a volunteer key to the restoration.

The farm is one of eight flagship sites. At the confluence with Gilwiskaw brook, 2.5 hectares of farmland is now wetland for snipe and lapwing. “We’re creating a mosaic of habitats – jewels linked by long watercourses,” Needham said. “It’s a nature-based recovery; we’re just prompting it.”

Volunteers Jan Cope and Liane Coleman have cleared more than 12 kilometers of invasive Himalayan balsam, which outcompetes native plants and causes erosion. Cope continues pulling rogue plants.

Volunteers, funded by Severn Trent, have been key. They are trained in riverfly monitoring; stoneflies, caddisflies, and mayflies indicate water quality. Numbers are increasing at several sites.

In total, 17 kilometers of river restored, 25 hectares of habitat created, with about 250 interventions including silt traps, wetlands, buffer strips, bunds, leaky barriers, swales, and ponds. The Environment Agency invested over £1.6 million since 2017, with additional funding from developers, Natural England, and the county council.

Bird footprints on the riverbank.

Separately, Severn Trent is spending over £100 million to reduce storm sewer overflow at 17 sites and building a controversial 24-kilometer pipeline to bypass the Mease with treated sewage into the River Tame. In a letter, the company said: “The River Mease currently has a flow that’s about twice as high as it should be naturally, and part of this is because of the amount of cleaned used water going into it from our works. To help bring the Mease back to its natural condition, we’re going to take the outflow from these plants and send it through a 24km pipeline we’re installing across to the Tame. At the same time, we’re going to be upgrading the two treatment works to further improve water quality.”

The Mease is a Special Area of Conservation and SSSI; the Tame is not. The pipeline plan is unpopular locally, raising concerns that improving some rivers may worsen others.

“In 20 years, we’ll see more natural spaces along our rivers.”

Work continues on the Mease with 30 additional schemes planned. Gravel for spawning, wood and fallen trees for feeding, and saplings for shelter have been added. Fry at the confluence indicate success, but one weir remains a migration barrier. A bypass channel will be built this summer, similar to the Colwick fish pass on the Trent installed in 2024.

The Mease’s SAC and SSSI status provides funding access. “If we can get it right on the Mease, we can do it everywhere else,” Needham said, though she noted river restoration is hampered by lack of national funding and awaits the government’s water white paper.

“We’re creating a mosaic of habitats – jewels linked by long watercourses.”

Asked how Britain’s rivers compare globally, Needham said, “They’re pretty shocking. We really haven’t looked after our rivers at all well, thanks to a combination of engineering, pollution and neglect.” She is optimistic attitudes have changed and predicts more natural spaces along rivers in 20 years.

Ultimately, Needham said the restoration shows the importance of collaboration among government, campaigners, farmers, and volunteers. “We all want our rivers to be protected,” she said. “We have ignored them for too long.”

Readers with opinions on these issues may submit a response of up to 300 words by email for consideration in the letters section.