ENVIRONMENT
Cllr Peter Hiller Glinton and Castor ward
‘A river runs through it ...’ Over the years I’ve been a rural councillor I’ve spoken with many residents who, like me, value the Maxey Cut waterway and also about how vital a piece of drainage this manmade river is, continuing to minimise the potential for flooding where we live.
T
he Cut (or GB205031050595 as it’s known at the EA) runs for about 8.5km, passing south of Maxey, Northborough, Glinton and Peakirk into the Welland river and has a catchment area of approximately 10Km2. Myriad residents and visitors regularly walk this beautiful area of our Tribland landscape throughout the seasons and I often remind myself just how lucky we are to have it on our doorstep. That said, at one of my regular Environment Agency board meetings I took the opportunity to voice the concerns of my fellow Glinton and Castor ward councillor John Holdich and I about the current level of weed growth in the Cut and was assured, after an in-depth questioning of officers, that the EA backroom folk have conducted recent river
modelling here and shown the channel still retains the capacity to pass a 100 year flood, despite the vegetation growth. Residents may be interested to learn that, following subsequent request from us both, EA staff are now planning a detailed walkthrough of the Cut’s complete length to identify the main plants in the low berms and create a preliminary report. This inspection will obviously help them to plan any remedial measures they might need to take to control identified invasive species for the waterway’s management programme, which they have planned over the next 12 months. They told us that the existing known growth includes: Himalayan Balsam Impatiens glandulifera,
Common Reed Phragmites australis, Reedmace Typha spp., Reed sweet grass Glyceria maxima, Common club rush Schoenoplectus lacustris and Pondweed Potamogeton spp. In addition, we have asked them to provide us with the specific programme they propose for the best way to maintain the noninvasive weed/reed margins on the Cut and we’ve suggested that rather than just remove them all to create a wide but bare channel devoid of all established habitat, to use them to naturally create a low flow channel in the bottom of the river which will enable fish to make their way upstream to the fish pass at Tallington weir and beyond. This will also maintain the river’s aesthetic we’ve all come to love, rather than a bare waterway.
If any readers would like us to forward their comments about the maintenance or other aspects of the Maxey Cut to the Environment Agency please email: glintoncastorward@mail.com 12
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