Drumbreck Marsh and Garrel Burn River Restoration
North Lanarkshire Council · 24 August 2022
Back to Environment and Place Committee — 24 August 2022 and its agenda
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North Lanarkshire Council Report Environment and Place Committee Does this report require to be approved? ☐ Yes ☒ No Ref NP/VA/HA Date 24/08/22 Dumbreck Marsh and Garrel burn river restoration From Nicole Paterson, Head of Environmental Assets E-mail patersonn@northlan.gov.uk Telephone 07717545345 Executive Summary This report provides a summary of the successful river restoration project completed on the Garrel burn at Dumbreck marsh, Kilsyth. The project aimed to improve habitats across the site and also provide improved public access and flood resilience. The project was delivered in partnership with the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency securing significant external funding to the project, and ensuring the project met wider environmental aims of improving river quality and fish passage. The project was successfully completed in April 2022. Contract costs were significantly higher than anticipated due to environmental complexity and design constraints. However the additional spend was largely met by additional external funding from Water Environment Fund and Scottish Government, enabling it to be completed within Environmental Assets existing capital budget allocation. Recommendations It is recommended that the Environment and Place Committee: 1) Recognise the successful delivery of this major project bringing significant environmental benefits to North Lanarkshire. 2) Recognise the partnership working with SEPA bringing additional benefit to the council. 3) Acknowledge the additional costs incurred in the contract due to the complex nature of the project. The Plan for North Lanarkshire Priority Improve the health and wellbeing of our communities Ambition statement (16) Transform our natural environment to support wellbeing and inward investment and enhance it for current and future generations
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1. Background 1.1 To deliver commitments in the Local Biodiversity Plan, Environmental Assets developed a project to improve wetland habitat in Dumbreck nature reserve. Consultation with SEPA led to development of a larger project that could also deliver river restoration benefits and public access improvements. SEPA were keen to support this project through its Water Environment Fund and the council entered into an MOU with SEPA with funding of £615,000 committed to the project at the outset rising to £2,615,000 when the project moved to delivery. 1.2 WSP (external consultant) was appointed in 2017 for survey, design, site construction and project management. Ground investigation works and hydraulic modelling led to a detailed design being agreed in November 2019. 1.3 Extensive community consultation has been carried out since 2017 (and reported in May 2019 to Environment and Transportation committee) and continued throughout construction with presentations at Community Council meetings, other local meetings in Kilsyth, project newsletter distribution and social media & NLC website. Detail of the project was reported to the Environment and Transportation committee in May 2019 att90499.pdf (northlanarkshire.gov.uk). 1.4 The work was tendered to the original design and awarded to George Leslie with work starting on site in September 2020 (with a revised 2 stage programme and following delays owing to COVID-19) after planning permission being granted in November 2019. 2. Report 2.1 This significant and innovative project, led by our Community Greenspace team with support from the Infrastructure and Transportation team and the Scottish Environment Protection Agency was completed in April 2022. The project was also used as an exemplar by the BBC during its coverage of COP26. 2.2 The key outcomes of the project are conserving threatened habitats and species such as invertebrates, water voles and wetland birds, improving and sustaining the wetland habitat of the reserve and improving climate resilience in the immediate area. 2.3 The investment has seen re-naturalisation of part of the Garrell Burn, from an entrenched channel created over 250 years ago. This channel lacked diversity and resulted in a reduction in habitat for local wildlife as well as disconnecting the burn from its floodplain. Further to this, two weirs located within the river at Kilsyth prevented access to over 1.5 km of quality upstream habitat to migrating fish such as eel, trout, salmon and lamprey. 2.4 By restoring around 600m of the burn to a more natural lowland meandering style, with a wider and shallower channel with gravel bars and pool features, the river will be able to accommodate a greater variety of wildlife and provide more attractive fish habitat. The channel also now allows the Garrell Burn to naturally flood into the wetland zone to help recharge the marsh with water.
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2.5 Two weirs have had “pre-weir” fish ladders built to allow migrating fish to, once again, reach the upstream habitat available in Kilsyth, and an amphibian pond created, as well as a sandmartin wall and bird and bat boxes installed. 2.6 Public access has also been substantially improved with new pathways and resurfacing of existing popular routes while three new attractive footbridges enhance the experience of the riverside for visitors. Further community and visitor engagement and improved interpretation of the site’s industrial and natural heritage is part of the council’s strategy for Dumbreck. 2.7 The original contract value was £1.800,000 (with provisional sums for invasive species removal. However, during 2020 the design team had to remodel the scheme due to concerns about flood risk. This resulted in time delays pushing the project into the fish breeding season and requiring programme extension and associated additional costs. The extent of invasive non-native species on the site was much greater than anticipated. This was expensive to remove and dispose of to required environmental standards further adding to the additional costs. Final construction contract costs were agreed in March 2022 as £4,175,789. 2.8 SEPA recognised both the significant environmental benefit the project was bringing to the river and wetland habitat and also the complexity of the design and engineering work required and awarded additional funds to cover the majority of these costs. The total award from the Water Environment Fund (administered by SEPA) was £3,020,000 with an additional £442,000 from the Scottish governments fish passage programme to support the construction of the two fish passes. Environmental Assets capital programme and Nature Recovery funding made up the remainder of the project costs (£900,000). 2.9 Following completion of the project the service held a lessons learned workshop in partnership with the design consultants and SEPA to fully understand the issues that arose due to the design complexity to aid both SEPA and the council to be in an improved position for any further projects under the Water Environment Fund programme. 3. Measures of success 3.1 Community use of the site increases Continued biodiversity improvements monitored by Clyde River Foundation and council Countryside ranger service 4. Supporting documentation Appendix 1 – Photos of the existing and restored site
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Nicole Paterson Head of Environmental Assets
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5. Impacts ( http://connect/report-template-guidance ) 5.1 Public Sector Equality Duty and Fairer Scotland Duty Does the report contain information that has an impact as a result of the Public Sector Equality Duty and/or Fairer Scotland Duty? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? If Yes, has an assessment been carried out and published on the council’s website? https://www.northlanarkshire.gov.uk/your-community/equalities/equality-and-fairer- scotland-duty-impact-assessments Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.2 Financial impact Does the report contain any financial impacts? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, have all relevant financial impacts have been discussed and agreed with Financial Solutions? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? Additional capital funding was awarded to the project from existing Environmental Asset capital programme with SCDG approval 5.3 HR policy impact Does the report contain any HR policy or procedure impacts? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant HR impacts have been discussed and agreed with People and Organisational Development? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.4 Legal impact Does the report contain any legal impacts (such as general legal matters, statutory considerations (including employment law considerations), or new legislation)? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, have all relevant legal impacts have been discussed and agreed with Legal and Democratic Solutions? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? 5.5 Data protection impact Does the report / project / practice contain or involve the processing of personal data? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, is the processing of this personal data likely to result in a high risk to the data subject? Yes ☐ No ☐ If Yes, has a Data Protection Impact Assessment (DPIA) been carried out and e- mailed to dataprotection@northlan.gov.uk Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.6 Technology / Digital impact Does the report contain information that has an impact on either technology, digital transformation, service redesign / business change processes, data management, or connectivity / broadband / Wi-Fi? Yes ☐ No ☒
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If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? Where the impact identifies a requirement for technology, has an assessment been carried out (or scheduled) by the Enterprise Architecture Governance Group (EAGG)? Yes ☐ No ☐ 5.7 Environmental / Carbon impact Does the report / project / practice contain information that has an impact on any environmental or carbon matters? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? A positive impact has been achieved benefitting wetland biodiversity and river condition. 5.8 Communications impact Does the report contain any information that has an impact on the council’s communications activities? Yes ☒ No ☐ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the impact? The project has generated positive comms activity including a ministerial visit to the completed project 5.9 Risk impact Is there a risk impact? Yes ☐ No ☒ If Yes, please provide a brief summary of the key risks and potential impacts, highlighting where the risk(s) are assessed and recorded (e.g. Corporate or Service or Project Risk Registers), and how they are managed?
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Appendix 1 Picture of the original (inset) and restored Garrel burn