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2023-11-30-accounts

To

Trustees' Annual Report for the period

Period start date Period end date 01 12 2022 30 11 2023

From

Section A Reference and administration details

Charity name River Lark Catchment Partnership Other names charity is known by Registered charity number (if any) 1177318

Charity's principal address 24, Northgate Avenue

Bury St Edmunds Suffolk Postcode IP32 6BB

Names of the charity trustees who manage the charity

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20		 Trustee name Office (if any) Dates acted if not for whole
**year **		 Name of person (or body) entitled
to appoint trustee (ifany)
James Stephens Treasurer
Andrew Hinchley Chairman
William Cranstoun Suffolk Wildlife Trust
David Palmer 1stDecember 2022 to
31stJanuary2023
Graham Showell
Caroline
Chamberlain
Chris Hainsworth 1stFebruary 2023 to 30th
November 2023
William Sutherland 26thOctober 2023 to 30th
November 2023

Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)

Name Dates acted if not for whole year

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Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)

Type of adviser Name Address

Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)

Section B Structure, governance and management

Description of the charity’s trusts

[CIO Association Constitution ]

[Association ]

[Elected by members ]

Additional governance issues (Optional information)

Our trustees are nominated and elected directly by our membership and we ensure that trustees are practitioners who bring a full set of competencies for our board to be effective.

In this our fifth year as a registered charity, we have had six trustees serving on our board throughout the year and we have added a further trustee from October 2023. Our constitution allows for a maximum of twelve trustees and our policy is to continue to attract nominees to add to the board to enhance the good governance and functioning of the charity.

We also enjoy the strong support of the Cam and Ely Ouse Catchment Partnership within which the Lark Partnership is a sub-catchment.

We have formally adopted an array of policies covering:-

Section C Objectives and activities

The River Lark Catchment Partnership’s objectives are to conserve, preserve and improve the River Lark and its catchment area for the benefit of the public, in particular but not exclusively by:

(i) Improving access and encouraging the appropriate use of the River and its environs by members of the public.

(iii) Facilitating community involvement in the conservation of the River

(iv) Monitoring the River & its catchment and reporting any issues or concerns to the appropriate bodies having statutory responsibility.

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The Trustees of RLCP actively engage in the formulation of the charity’s annual action plan and in so doing ensure that they have due regard to the Charity Commission’s public benefit guidance. The Trustees constantly reviewed the annual work plan as it was underway for 2023. Statutory declaration on public benefit.

Building a community-based organisation to deliver river conservation: The conservation activities we aspire to be in line with the charity’s objectives require us to develop an effective linked community organisation along the full extent of the river. We intend to do this progressively over the next few years. In 2023 we were able to progress our river restoration activities through the Brecks Fen Edge & Rivers Landscape Partnership Scheme (BFER) and matching grants made to us by the Environment Agency.

Installing brashwood bundles on the Lark near the Lark Valley Golf Course in April

Citizen Science evidence gathering for our catchment: RLCP is committed to developing a robust approach to collecting the scientific evidence required for improving our catchment in partnership with Anglian Water, Environment Agency and our local Authorities and businesses.

In 2023 we continued to build our Citizen Science programme with volunteer training, water quality and flow gauging activities, GIS mapping and collaboration through the national ‘Catchment Systems Thinking Cooperative (CaSTCo)’ project.

Preparations for flow gauging at the Linnet Tributary site

Outreach and public engagement: Educating the public and engaging with our catchment stakeholders is a high priority. In 2023 we pursued these aims with:-

• Webinars and public speaking events

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Charles Rangeley-Wilson leading DEFRA’s Chalk-Stream strategy, at the lectern in Bury St Edmunds

The River Lark chalk-stream Flagship Project: The National Chalk Stream Restoration Strategy was launched in October 2021 as a ‘Catchment Based Approach’ (CaBA) initiative sponsored by DEFRA, EA and Ofwat by CaBA’s chalk stream restoration group which is made up of representatives from the Environment Agency, Natural England, Ofwat, Water UK, WWF, Angling Trust, Salmon and Trout Conservation, The Rivers Trust, Wild Trout Trust and Wildlife Trusts. In 2022 Anglian Water selected the Lark to be the chalk stream ‘Flagship’ in its area guided by the following criteria:

• Local Passion –The creation and development of the River Lark Catchment Partnership charity. Lots of public interest/involvement (Mildenhall & Bury St Ed). • Landowners –Anglian Water are currently building a landowner network for AMP7 WINEP delivery and there are known connections through local partnerships. • Scale –The Lark catchment is large, but the chalk stream sections are of the right scale for this proposal. • Designation –The River Lark currently has no legal designation.

• Condition –Across the Lark catchment, waterbodies have moderate or worse ecological status. There is a clear opportunity for improvement (as seen in targeted stretches of the Lark already), but there are also challenges around technical feasibility and timescales of improvements. We recognised the close alignment of our action plan for the Lark with the chalk stream recovery strategy and engaged with AW as the key community-based partner for the initiative. In September 2023 we entered into a Partnering Agreement with Anglian Water for the Flagship project which will be implemented through AW’s 2025 to 2030 business plan.

Wider water sector collaboration and engagement: The River Lark is a sub-catchment of the Cam and Ely-Ouse catchment (CamEO). Throughout the year we have participated in the regular CamEO ‘collaboration and engagement’ meetings and other events including the annual conference held in April where interacted vibrantly with our partners across the region.

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Section D Achievements and performance

Celebrating the year’s achievements:

In August we held our Evening Summer Garden Party at Fullers Mill where some 50 of our members and volunteers attended. We are so grateful to Annie, Maddie and the team at Fullers Mill for allowing us to use their beautiful setting, and a big thankyou to Steph Holland for organising the event. For those that couldn't make it, we hope you can join us next year!

River restoration work in 2023:

The year’s river restoration works within the Brecks Fen Edge & Rivers Landscape Partnership Scheme (BFER) delivered about a 1km stretch of the river from the outskirts of Bury St Edmunds into the South end of the Lark Valley golf course.

The Co-op to Golf Course Reach of the River Lark on the outskirts of Bury St Edmunds

Towards the end of 2022 we worked on all the preparations for the project, particularly the permitting and the engagement with the riparian landowners for their consent. This year we went on to carry out our planned twelve work parties from December through to May 2023 along the reach.

The first work parties carried out in the winter months in all kinds of weather including snow involved shifting masses of material along the long access footpath to our worksite with our trolleys, importing loads of brash bundles and stakes for the construction of flow deflectors, berms and bank protection along the reach and then hauling out vast quantities of trash and litter from the reach.

Taking the litter out – and hauling the materials in

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Section D Achievements and erformance
p
Nothing like a warm drink on a cold day! Making progress with the brush bundles
Later into the spring we pushed hard to get the works in place in time before we suspended the activities
for the bird nesting season.
In April and May, despite unusually wet weather and high flows in the river we managed to fit in two more
work parties to start installing pre-planted coir rolls and planting other riparian plants along the reach. We
had programmed to continue with the planting of coir grass rolls in the autumn, but the very unusual wet
weather led to the river being too flooded and we’ve postponed the works into next year.
Another flow deflector installed Coir grass planting
All in all the restoration has worked well, increasing the sinuosity of the river, with the flow deflectors and
large woody material promoting scour which mobilised sections of bed material and the brash shelves
assisting in collecting some of the fine materials released by the scour process and providing habitat. A
huge thankyou to our restoration volunteers led by Glenn for putting up with the rough conditions and
pushing though with the work this year.
Citizen Science in the Lark Catchment:
Great strides were made in 2023 in our efforts to develop our citizen science capabilities. We now have
volunteers trained and active in:
• Water quality sampling
•
Water flow gauging
•
Modular river physical field surveys (MoRPh)
•
GIS mapping.
Since September 2022, we have been regularly sampling the water from Sicklesmere to Hengrave on the
main River Lark, as well as revisiting our tributaries project. Over the year we purchased and trialled
handheld Hanna colorimeters, with mixed results and trained several new volunteers to help us collect
and test samples as well as adding flow monitoring and dissolved oxygen to what we can investigate. By
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Section D Achievements and erformance p

May ten of our volunteers had completed two days of SmartRivers training. We had to pause our regular sampling between June and August due to low levels and high vegetation making use of that time to hold another training session for volunteers to learn how to sample and to test the samples and we had our Lovibond equipment re-calibrated. We also carried out flow monitoring for the Linnet tributary in the Ickworth Estate and have been using our new dissolved oxygen metre to test the water on the Linnet.

In November we teamed up with our CaSTCo partners to take part in a filming day at Ickworth, highlighting the importance of citizen science and the collaborative work we do with the Environment Agency and Norfolk Rivers Trust. We also co-hosted two landowner engagement events with Natural England and Norfolk Rivers Trust to encourage landowners to get involved with Citizen Science.

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Section D Achievements and erformance p

River Lark – Anglian Water’s chalk-stream Flagship Project: In 2023 RLCP has entered into a Partnering Agreement with Anglian Water (AW) for the preparatory and implementation stages of the Lark chalk-stream Flagship Project. From 2025 to 2030 AW will be implementing the project aimed at significantly improving the health of our precious chalk stream. Our Partnership Agreement with AW provides the framework for us to develop our capabilities as AW’s community partner in the project’s implementation. We have also benefitted from a first grant made to us under the partnership agreement from Anglian Water’s ‘Get River Positive’ scheme to support our participation in the preparation for Flagship from mid-2023 through to the end of 2024 In 2023 we progressed Flagship preparation by supporting Norfolk Rivers Trust who have been commissioned by Anglian Water to deliver a catchment development plan for the Lark and Wissey catchments. We have also been busy developing and promoting our vision for Flagship implementation. Outreach, stakeholder and public engagements in 2023: Lark Water Forum:

Following on from the very successful Lark Water Conference held in November 2022 we inaugurated the Lark Water Forum with a first meeting held at West Suffolk House in March 2023. The Lark Water Forum is a regular gathering of the significant water stakeholders across the socio-economic sectors of the Lark catchment. In 2023 we held meetings in March, June and 1[st] December. RLCP hosts the initiative and our treasurer Jim Stephens is the convener for the Forum.

Farmer and landowner engagement: We made huge strides in 2023 with our farmer and landowner engagement, particularly making use of our ‘water for tomorrow’ grant.

The main effort on landowner and farm business engagement has been trained on the Linnet tributary catchment. Once we have gained experience and tangible results by piloting our effort there, we envisage rolling out the acquired know-how across the Lark more generally. In doing so we have harnessed the relationship we have built with the National Trust Ickworth Estate which occupies a significant portion of the Linnet’s catchment area. Together with NT we have co-invested in building our understanding of the river and its catchment by:

The engagement campaign targeted upwards of thirty landowners and farm businesses, introducing them to the challenges and opportunities of catchment management and more specifically how organisation through a ‘landscape scale’ landowner and farm cluster in a Linnet pilot could address the needs for upland catchment landscape management directed at reducing the loss of fertile soil and the heavy sedimentation loads in the streams at times of storms and floods.

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Section D Achievements and erformance p

Rob Mungovan of WTT by the Linnet stream Our Citizen Science Map of the Linnet Tributary’s catchment

The campaign involved contacting the Linnet farmers by email and phone to notify them, register their interest and then sending them the pamphlet prepared specifically for the campaign. Based on the recorded interest we invited the farmers to an event in October at the NT Ickworth Estate to discuss a prospective Linnet pilot. This was followed up by our participation in a larger farmer contacting event in November hosted by Norfolk Rivers Trust and the Environment Agency for the wider Lark catchment.

Feedback has helped us understand how crucial it is to invest in publicising events so that farmers get the message and are motivated to attend. We need a step change in how we invest in that and we have to consider further investing in appropriate professional media support. I. Farmer motivation is very centric on their business advantage. Sharpening up on the link between catchment management needs and the prospective DEFRA payments to farmers for environmental and climate goods and services (through Environmental Land Management (ELMS) schemes: Sustainable Farming Initiative (SFI), Countryside Stewardship (CS) and Landscape Recovery) will be important. II. It is key to get leading farm businesses pro-actively involved to stimulate wider farmer engagement.

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Linnet farmer engagement pamphlet
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Public speaking events:

We organised two evening talks by Dr Robin Price, Anglian Water’s Director of Quality and Environment in May and by Charles Rangeley-Wilson, Chair of the DEFRA sponsored ‘Catchment Based Approach (CaBA)’ Chalk Stream Restoration Group in July. Both talks were advertised on-line by Bury Free Press and were well attended in Bury St Edmunds with audiences of about 50 in the room and the same again attending virtually.

The talk by Robin Price summarised the plans for the Lark chalk stream Flagship Project and Anglian Water’s ‘Get River Positive’ initiative in joint venture with Severn Trent. Robin then went on to inform us on AW’s Strategic Pipeline Alliance (SPA) water transfer pipeline project which is in construction to bring treated water from the Humber into our region as well as the longer-term reservoir storage projects aimed at relieving the public water supply dependency on the chalk aquifer.

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Section D Achievements and erformance p

Andrew Hinchley, Jim Stephens, Robin Price and Steph Holland after the talk The talk by Charles Rangeley-Wilson was on chalk-stream recovery using the rich experience gained over the last two decades or so restoring and regenerating chalk stream habitats in Norfolk, particularly the Nar river. The broad ranging talk gave us all important insights about restoring these sensitive habitats that we can take on board for our Lark flagship project and where our restoration and citizen science programmes can contribute significantly.

Cam and Ely Ouse Partnership participation :

We have kept up our participation in CamEO by attending all their partnership engagement events as well as their conference in April. In April CamEO initiated a steering group with the primary purpose to provide strategic direction to the numerous parties that share the common objective of improving the water environment in CamEO Catchment Area, and thereby help CamEO progress towards the vision of a Cam and Ely Ouse catchment with good quality and resilient water environments, that are protected and enhanced and able to benefit communities and businesses. RLCP is a permanent member of the steering group and is represented at meeting by our chairman Andrew Hinchley or treasurer Jim Stephens.

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Section E Financial review

The charity held a total of £3,954 in funds at the end of the period comprising £2,615 as restricted funds and £1,339 as unrestricted funds.

For the previous year the corresponding sums were a total of £7,929.

For 2023 the charity does not have a reserves policy and does not hold funds in reserve. This will be actively reviewed in 2024 together with considerations about any necessary decisions to have funds in reserve.

The charity registers Receipts & Payments accounts. No funds were materially in deficit in 2023.

Further financial review details (Optional information)

In 2023 the charity received grant funds from the following donors:

Grant funded expenditure has supported our capacity building for catchment-based approach awareness raising, Lark River restoration works, preparation for the Lark chalk-stream Flagship project, pollution action plan and citizen science monitoring efforts, and our outreach campaigns.

Section F Other optional information

List of Abbreviations:

AW Anglian Water

BFER The Brecks Fen Edge & Rivers Landscape Partnership (funded by National Lottery) CaBA The Catchment Based Approach CaSTCo Catchment Systems Thinking Cooperative Project CamEO The Cam and Ely Ouse Catchment Partnership DEFRA The Department of Environment Food and Rural Affairs EA The Environment Agency

ELMS DEFRA’s Environmental Land Management Scheme GIS Geographical Information System MoRPh Modular river physical field surveys NRT Norfolk Rivers Trust NT National trust RLCP River Lark Catchment Partnership WTT Wild Trout Trust

Section G Declaration

The trustees declare that they have approved the trustees’ report above. Signed on behalf of the charity’s trustees

Signature(s)

Graham Showell Full name(s)[James Stephens ] Position (eg Secretary, Chair, etc)[Treasurer, Trustee ] Trustee

Date

2nd April 2024

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Receipts & Payments Accounts

Name River Lark Catchment Partnership Charity Number 1177318 For the period from (start date) 1[st] December 2022 To (end date) 30[th] November 2023

Section A Receipts & Payments Receipts & Payments Receipts & Payments Receipts & Payments Receipts & Payments
A1 Receipts
CamEO HostingGrant
EA Vol Restoration (PG/2021/WEIF/EAN/001) and
(PG/2122/WEIF/EAN/020)
Brecks Fen Edge & Rivers LPS Claims
Water for Tomorrow Grant
WfT CaBA WR021
Localities - Citizen sciencegrants
EA Partnershipfor River Restoration 2022
EA Partnershipfor River Restoration 2023
AW Lark flagshipSupport MOU
CaBA WR023
Donations
Sub total
A2 Asset & investment sales, etc
Total receipts
A3 Payments
RLCP Administration services
RLCP Annual Insurance Premium
RLCP Web Hosting
RLCP Entertainment Expenses
RLCP Events Expenses
RLCP Materials Expenses
BFER Glenn Smithson Ltd Support Services
BFER Expenses
NCVO Training (AW flagship support MOU)
GRP Flagship Engagement and Coordination
Fornham Equipment Grants WSC 2019-20
EA vol restoration (PG/2122/WEIF/EAN/020) - Permit
services G Smithson Ltd
Water for Tomorrow Admin & Coordination
Water for Tomorrow - CU Abstraction Pilot Contract final
payment of 50% on completion
Water for Tomorrow - Citizen Science Water Quality and
Flow Equipment purchases
Water for Tomorrow - LAG support payment
Water for Tomorrow - Training and CS support
EA river restoration (PG/2122/WEIF/EAN/020) - Costs
Localities Citizen Science Grants - Water Quality
Equipment purchases
EA Partnership for River Restoration 2022 - EA
Permit application EPR/WB3892YM
EA Partnership for River Restoration 2022 - Wildfish smart
rivers training
EA Partnership for River Restoration 2022 - Vole
Survey
EA Partnership for River Restoration 2022 -
Coordination services
EA Partnership for River Restoration 2022 - Permit
services Glenn SmithsonLtd
EA Partnership for River Restoration 2022 -
Procurement of materials and equipment
EA Partnership for River Restoration 2023 -
Procurement of materials and equipment
WfT CaBA WR021 - Admin & Coordination
WfT CaBA WR021 - CS Engagement and Equipment Costs
CaBA WR023 - Farm Systems Ltd Payments
Sub total
A4 Asset & investment purchaces, etc
Total payments
Net of receipts/(payments)
A5 Transfers between funds
A6 Cash funds last year end
Cash funds this period end		 Unrestricted
funds
to the nearest £
2000
1000
300
3300		 Restricted
funds
to the nearest £
7597
7500
1074
7358
17000
5000
0
45529		 Endowment
funds
to the nearest £		 Total
funds
to the nearest £
2000
1000
7597
7500
1074
7358
0
17000
5000
300
48829
0
48829
0
1194
29
785
25
94
1000
35
8041
2802
0
0
2648
7001
1652
0
2088
0
1822
0
0
0
510
0
6849
3551
4604
3574
4500
52804
-
52804
-3975
7929
3954		 Last year
to the nearest £
2000 2000 2000
5000
1000 1000
7597 7597 7500
7500 7500
1074 1074 2850
7358 7358 2621
0
17000 17000
5000 5000
300 0 300
3300 45529 48829 19971
0 0 0 0
3300 45529 48829 19971
935
373
286
1097
268
330
500
5323
1065
1800
150
4260
2084
255
1165
101
600
500
21092
-
21092
-1121
9050
7929

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Section B Statement of assets and liabilities at the end of the period
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
funds funds funds
Details to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
B1 Cash funds Receipts 3300 45529 0
Payments 3162 49642 0
Cash funds last year end 1201 6728 0
Total cash funds 1339 2615 0
Unrestricted Restricted Endowment
funds funds funds
Details to the nearest £ to the nearest £ to the nearest £
B2 Other monetary assets
Fund to which Cost Current value
Details asset belongs (optional) (optional)
B3 Investment assets
Fund to which Cost Current value
Details asset belongs (optional) (optional)
B4 Assets retained for the charitiy's Laptop Computer unrestricted
own use Gardening equipment unrestricted
Water Quality Testing equipment unrestricted
River restoration tools unrestricted
River restoration materials restricted
PPE (Waders, Gauntlets,etc) unrestricted
Display kit and Banners unrestricted
Fund to which Amount due When due
Details liability relates (optional) (optional)
B5 Liabilities
Signed by one or two trustees on behalf Signature Print name Date of approval
of all the trustees
James Stephens 2nd April 2024
Andrew Hinchley 2nd April 2024
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