Don Bradman, Midge Ure and A E Houseman.

Greetings from a chilly but bright Swaledale. It’s been some time, but I felt an update on what has been happening recently may not be the worst idea.

We have had quite a few meetings to move forward our NFM (Natural Flood Management) work on the Cluster. We have written about NFM before and have had a few scrapes dug and most are doing what they are supposed to do. We’ve built a few leaky dams and most are doing what they’re supposed to do. However we are ready to really expand our NFM efforts, hence these recent meetings.

We are working with Ousewem https://www.ousewem.co.uk to design and implement these further measures. Ousewem is a local partnership project funded by the government, working with farmers and landowners within the North Yorkshire’s Swale, Ure, Nidd and Ouse (SUNO) catchments to actively implement nature-based solutions (NbS) including natural flood management (NFM) to help manage flood risk. They have identified Arkengarthdale as a priority area for this and our Cluster is right in the middle of it!

We are not the only folk to be involved and there is good positive interest from other land owners/managers in the area. Not only should these efforts benefit in reducing the likelihood of flooding, but they’re also brilliant in helping biodiversity and bio abundance without really affecting the ability to produce food locally.

One beastie that benefits from this ‘sort of thing’ is the magnificent Broad-Bodied Chaser, one of which appeared weeks after we dug our first lot of scrapes. It was seen in an area that was seasonally wet previously, but we expanded it and hopefully made it even more valuable.

There are some public meetings about Ousewem and the work they do happening shortly in the village. Have a look on the above link for details.

Finally, if you are wondering what the title of this blog is all about, those three individuals all have something in common. Don Bradman was an Australian cricketer, Midge Ure is a musician and A E Houseman was a poet. Their common denominator is very much linked to the broad subject of this article, namely water.

Answer in a day or two in case you haven’t got it!

Martin WW