Date published: 03 January 2022
Chippings from the felled trees have also gone to Lydgate for use in a tree nursery to enhance the local community and to Hollingworth Lake Park, to be used to make a footpath with the help of local volunteers
Trees – felled during construction of the £56m Rochdale and Littleborough and £40m Radcliffe and Redvales flood schemes – are being re-used to further improve flood protection across Greater Manchester.
Timber trunks collected from the construction activity have gone to Smithills where log barriers and tree planting help to store water in upland areas in order to reduce flood risk for communities in Bolton downstream.
Recent studies have shown that slowing the flow of water on the Smithills Estate, through measures such as leaky barriers, can reduce flood risk in the river by up to 27%. Reusing timber from traditional flood scheme construction will contribute to the creation of at least another four leaky barriers on the site.
Chippings from the felled trees have also gone to Lydgate for use in a tree nursery to enhance the local community and to Hollingworth Lake Country Park, to be used to make a footpath with the help of local volunteers.
The project was led by the Environment Agency working in partnership with Mersey Forest, Bam Nuttall, Volker Stevin, Bell Tree Surgeons and Pownall Plant.
Ben Scott, Area Flood and Coastal Risk Manager for the Environment Agency, said: “At the Environment Agency, we operate with a ‘waste not, want not’ approach to our flood schemes, designing them in such a way that they will not only protect people and property from flooding, but also deliver realistic long-term environmental benefits.
“Giving these trees a new lease of life as part of natural flood management measures will not only protect even more local communities from the devastating impacts of flooding but will bring so many positive benefits for climate regulation, wildlife and water quality.
“I look forward to seeing these innovative measures work in tandem with our traditional defences for many years to come.”
Mike Norbury, Project Manager at Mersey Forest said: “The three R’s of sustainability are ‘reduce, re-use, re-cycle’.
“Re-using the wood in this way can locally hold-up floodwaters in the landscape, to slow the flow, alleviating flood and low flow risks associated with very wet or dry spells of weather.”
Once completed, both the Rochdale and Littleborough, and Radcliffe and Redvales schemes will feature the creation of new wildlife habitat, increased green spaces and amenity areas for the public as well as the re-planting of trees to mitigate the impact of those felled. Current replacement planting stands at approximately 5:1.
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