## **Trustees' Annual Report for the period** Period start date Period end date 01 12 2024 30 11 2025 **From To** ## 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** |1
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20|**Trustee name**|**Office (if any)**|**Dates acted if not for whole year**|**Name of person (or**
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**appoint trustee (ifany)**| |---|---|---|---|---| ||Ros Alexander|Chair||| ||Jim Stephens|Treasurer||| ||Andrew Hinchley|||| ||Graham Showell|||| ||Chris Hainsworth|||| ||William Sutherland|||| ||Peter Lack|||| |||||| |||||| |||||| |||||| |||||| |||||| |||||| |||||| |||||| ## **Names of the trustees for the charity, if any, (for example, any custodian trustees)** **Name Dates acted if not for whole year** ## **Names and addresses of advisers (Optional information)** **TAR** April **2026** 1 **Type of adviser Name Address** ## **Name of chief executive or names of senior staff members (Optional information)** Ciaran Shaffrey, Lark Catchment Officer ## **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 eight year as a registered charity, we have had seven trustees serving on our board throughout the year. 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. In 2025 RLCP was elected by CamEO’s steering group to take over the hosting duties of CamEO from Anglian Water and the Rivers Trust. We have formally adopted an array of policies covering:risk management - volunteer management - safeguarding - complaints handling - managing conflict of interest - ensuring equality. ## **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. (ii) Educating the public about the River and its environs (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. **TAR** April **2026** 2 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 2025. ## **Staff recruitment** RLCP recruited its first full-time employee to act as our Catchment Officer in 2025. Ciaran Shaffrey will work hard to advance our Lark catchment stakeholder engagement and volunteer management together with working on and coordinating our diverse activities on the Lark chalk-stream flagship initiative in close rapport with Anglian Water. ## **Building a community-based organisation to deliver river monitoring and conservation:** The river monitoring and conservation activities we aspire to 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 2025 we continued our river restoration activities entering into an agreement with Suffolk Wildlife Trust to collaborate on river restoration on their land. ## **Citizen Science evidence gathering for our catchment:** RLCP is committed to developing a robust approach involving our community and our volunteers to collecting the scientific evidence required for improving our catchment in partnership with Anglian Water, Environment Agency and Natural England as well as our local Authorities and businesses. We continue 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. In 2025 we pursued our Lark catchment monitoring and evidence gathering activities with grants from St Edmundsbury Town Council and Anglian Water’s Get River Positive programme. **TAR** April **2026** 3 **Outreach and public engagement:** Educating the public and engaging with our catchment stakeholders is a high priority. In 2025 we pursued these aims with:- - Community education - River awareness for local schools - Engagement with catchment landowner and farming stakeholders - • Water Resources East (WRE) and Lark Water Forum Lark catchment workshops. ## **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 Edmunds). • **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. Through 2025 we have undertaken preparation activities for flagship for project planning and RLCP capacity building. ## **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 where we interacted vibrantly with our partners across the region. In September RLCP took over the hosting of CamEO from Anglian Water and the Rivers Trust. **TAR** April **2026** 4 ## Section D Achievements and erformance p ## **RLCP capacity building in 2025:** 2025 has been a step up for our charity as we have been able to recruit a full time River Lark catchment officer. Ciaran Shaffrey joined RLCP in September to fulfil the following job description: - working with partners to develop the current River Lark Catchment Plan into a succession of projects ready for delivery - maintaining and developing RLCP’s GIS capability - gathering baseline data, including biodiversity surveys and invertebrate sampling to inform proposed works, and monitor the effectiveness of completed work - overseeing the delivery of larger projects - working with RLCP volunteers to deliver river restoration works - helping to build productive relationships with stakeholders and riparian owners - encouraging regenerative or catchment friendly farming practices in the region - helping ensure RLCP’s medium to long term stability by identifying grant opportunities: `o` applying for small grants - assisting in the preparation of larger grants - developing RLCP as an effective CamEO host and acknowledged leader in the delivery of BNG disseminating information and good practice amongst the wider CamEO catchment organisations contributing to a programme of public engagement and education. We have also engaged Becky Poynter to support our core administration including managing our website and web-based communication - . **----- Start of picture text -----**
Ciaran Shaffrey Becky Poynter
Lark catchment officer RLCP admin support
**----- End of picture text -----**
## **River restoration work:** In 2025 there has been a pause in our river restoration activities as we take into consideration the conclusions and recommendations we have been receiving from the Lark Fluvial audit which we report on below. We have maintained our engagement with the Brecks project post BFER and our chair has been appointed to the board of a new Brecks Landscape Partnership which has been set up to unite communities, landowners, conservation bodies, and local authorities in a shared mission to protect and enhance the Brecks. In October 2025 we entered into a partnership agreement with Suffolk Wildlife Trust to work on Lark river restoration projects within their land. We carried our preparatory works for restoring the river within Lackford Lakes immediately upstream of the West Stow water recycling site which will be carried out in 2026. **TAR** April **2026** 5 Section D Achievements and erformance p **RLCP volunteers doing instream habitat work in spring 2025** ## **Controlling Non-Native Invasive Species and Litter Picking:** In the Lark streams there is a proliferation of Himalayan Balsam which left uncontrolled is very damaging to our native flora. Himalayan balsam colonises the banks of rivers, streams and ditches. Its shallow roots and annual growth habit do little to stabilise the soil along banks, leading to habitat alteration and degradation. RLCP volunteers have been routinely carrying out summer ‘Himalayan Balsam Bashing’ campaigns and are moving towards establishing a control and eventual eradication approach for the catchment. **Our Balsam bashing volunteers in July 2025** **TAR** April **2026** 6 Section D Achievements and erformance p We are also stepping up our litter picking campaigns to keep the River clearer. **Litter picking in Forham and Hengrave in 2025** ## **Citizen Science in the Lark Catchment:** In 2025 our main focus was continuing to deliver into our citizen science monitoring programme as one of the Anglian region’s demonstration catchments in the national ‘Catchment Systems Thinking Cooperative (CaSTCo)’ project. The three-year CaSTCo project sponsored by OFWAT ended in 2025. Our main focus in 2025 has been on improving Lark water quality monitoring with Seneye automatic monitoring as well as continuing with water quality and invertebrate monitoring, and MorPH habitat surveys. Through 2025 we have continued to maintain our links with the Anglian Water, EA and Rivers Trust CaSTCo team as prospective funds for continuing the effort are being sort. An important activity in 2025 was supporting the Lark Fluvial Audit and restoration strategy being delivered by Southampton University with sediment collecting which was carried out by RLCP’s Glenn Smithson and Rob Clapham of the EA. **Installing a sediment collecting tube Sediment samples ready for dispatch** ## **Public Education:** We have been particulary focused on our charity’s objective to educate the public about the river and its environs. For public engagement RLCP gave talks regarding the river Lark to three organisations in 2025: - Tuddenham Village on 25[th] February 2025. - Long Melford Gardeners on 17[th] March 2025. - Lackford Village on 17[th] May 2025. **TAR** April **2026** 7 Section D Achievements and erformance p **Graham Showell giving his talk to Long Melford Gardeners** For schools our Chair gave talks to year seven classes at Bury St Edmunds King Edward VI school in May and our newly recruited Catchment Officer gave talks to year 3 classes and a key stage 2 assembly at Bury St Edmunds Guildhall Feoffment primary school in November. ## **River Lark – Anglian Water’s chalk-stream Flagship Project:** In 2023 RLCP 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. In 2025 we have been provided with a ‘Get Rivers Positive’ grant enabling RLCP to recruit our Catchment Officer and continue with Flagship project development efforts. With EA taking the lead, we have engaged Southampton University in a collaborative agreement to undertake a research project in order to design, collect and analyse data on the River Lark to guide future flagship restoration actions with the objectives to: - assess the current state of the Lark and provide recommendations for achieving best possible state by 2030 and beyond - undertake a combination of and desk- and field-based data collection including a fluvial audit and network of sediment samplers to better understand and quantify sediment inputs, storage and transport through the catchment - undertake sediment coring, paleo-environmental analysis and other analysis, which alongside the fluvial audit will determine the ‘feasibility’ for restoration at specifically agreed sites. The outputs will guide future projects to ‘design-phases during flagship implementation - Train RLCP volunteers to maintain equipment and undertake additional surveys. **TAR** April **2026** 8 Section D Achievements and erformance p The River Lark Fluvial Audit report is now available and RLCP with our Flagship partners have this vital guide to take us through the implementation period of the project. ## **Outreach, stakeholder and public engagements in 2025:** _**Lark Water Forum:**_ The Lark Water Forum is a regular gathering of the significant water stakeholders across the socioeconomic sectors of the Lark catchment. RLCP hosts the initiative and our treasurer Jim Stephens is the convener for the Forum. In 2025 we invited the Forum delegates to the Lark catchment workshops that were organised by Water Resources East (WRE) and held at Tuddenham Village Hall in July and September. ## _**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 held at Bury St Edmunds Guildhall in November 2024. CamEO’s steering group provides strategic direction to the numerous parties that share the common objective of improving the water environment in the 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 chair Ros Alexander and/or our treasurer Jim Stephens. In September 2025 RLCP took over from The Rivers Trust and Anglian Water the hosting duties for CamEO. **TAR** April **2026** 9 Section D Achievements and performance **Section E Financial review** The charity held a total of £51,042 in funds at the end of the period comprising £49,064 as restricted funds and £1,978 as unrestricted funds. For the previous year the corresponding sums were a total of £12,649. For 2025 the charity does not have a reserves policy and does not hold funds in reserve. This will be actively reviewed in 2026 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 2025. ## **Further financial review details (Optional information)** In 2025 the charity received grant funds from the following donors: - Environment Agency - Bury St Edmunds Town Council - Anglian Water - RC Browne & Sons Grant funded expenditure has supported our capacity building for catchment-based approach awareness raising, Lark River restoration works and citizen science, activities on the Lark chalk-stream Flagship project, hosting of CamEO 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 EA The Environment Agency GIS Geographical Information System MorPh Modular river physical field surveys NRT Norfolk Rivers Trust RLCP River Lark Catchment Partnership WRE Water Resources East ## **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** 24[th] April 2026 **TAR** April **2026** 10 ## Receipts & Payments Accounts Name River Lark Catchment Partnership Charity Number 1177318 For the period from (start date) 1[st] December 2024 To (end date) 30th November 2025 |**Section A**|||**Receipts & Payments**|**Receipts & Payments**|**Receipts & Payments**|**Receipts & Payments**|**Receipts & Payments**|| |---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---| |**A1 Receipts**
CamEO HostingGrant
Brecks Fen Edge & Rivers LPS Claims
WfT CaBA WR021
CaBA WR023
BSE Town Council CS Grant 2023 - 2024
BSE Town Council CS Grant 2024 - 2025
EA Partnershipfor River Restoration 2023
AW GDP FlagshipGrant No.1
Browne & Son Grant(EA)
AW GDP FlagshipGrant No.2
Donations
_Sub total_
**A2 Asset & investment sales, etc**
_Total receipts_
**A3 Payments**
Salaries and NI
HMRC paye
Payroll Service
Pension contributions
RLCP Adminstration services
RLCP Donations
RLCP Annual Insurance Premium
RLCP ARCGIS Licences
RLCP Entertainment Expenses
RLCP Admin & Events Expenses
RLCP Equipment&Materials Expenses
CamEO hosting expenses
BFER Expenses
RLCP Governance admin and training
GRP Flagship Grant No.1 Engagement and Coordination
costs
GRP Flagship Grant No.2 Growing and Securing RLCP
volunteer base costs
EA Partnership for River Restoration 2023 -
Procurement and expenses
WfT CaBA WR021 - CS Engagement and Equipment Costs
CaBA WR023 - Farm Systems Ltd Payments, coordination
and expenses
BSE Town Council CS equipment and training procurement
and expenses
Hawstead FM Project costs
_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 £
899
899||Restricted
funds
to the nearest £
15000
3000
10000
40000
68000||Endowment
funds
to the nearest £||Total
funds
to the nearest £
15000
0
0
0
0
0
0
3000
10000
40000
899
68899
0
68899
7567
354
318
485
901
100
1336
657
0
68
2707
535
0
960
2904
6792
0
0
0
1663
3159
30506
-
30506
38393
12649
51042|Last year
to the nearest £| ||||15000||||15000|2000| ||||||||0|698| ||||||||0|2500| ||||||||0|5000| ||||||||0|3792| ||||||||0|3600| ||||||||0|9956| ||||3000||||3000|21000| ||||10000||||10000|| ||||40000||||40000|| ||899||||||899|1768| ||899||68000||||68899|50314| ||0||0||||0|0| ||899||68000||||68899|50314| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||| |||||||||268| |||||||||| |||||||||982| |||||||||| |||||||||537| |||||||||667| |||||||||322| |||||||||| |||||||||834| |||||||||1597| |||||||||17982| |||||||||| |||||||||6335| |||||||||1284| |||||||||4990| |||||||||5821| |||||||||| |||||||||41619| |||||||||-| |||||||||41619| |||||||||8695| |||||||||| |||||||||3954| |||||||||12649| |||||||||| **----- Start of picture text -----**
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 899 68000 0
Payments 2343 28163 0
Cash funds last year end 3422 9227 0
Total cash funds 1978 49064 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 IT Equipment 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 14th April 2026
Ros Alexander 14th April 2026
**----- End of picture text -----**
Independent examlnerfs report to the trustees of Rlver Lark Catchment Partnernhip CIO I r•port to th8 trustees on my ex8minati¢)n of the accounts of the Rivef Lark Catchment Partnership CIO (the Charity) for the year erKlad 30 November 2025. Re8pon8lb1lhl￿ •nd bmi• of r•port As the chanty trustees of the Charity you are responsible for the preparation of the a￿Ounts in accordance with the reqiArements of the Charities Act 2011 {'the Acr). I report In respect of my examinatlon of the Charivs accounts carried out under section 145 of the 2011 Act and in carrying out my examination I ffive followed all the applicable Diredions gi¥en by the Chaiity Commission under sedion 145{5)(b) of the Act. Indap•ndent examlnerf8 8tatom•nt I have completed my examination. l (¥nfirm that no material matter3 have come to rlry ali¥wition in Goiineciion with the exanmnalion grvirvJ me Ca￿ to believe that in any material respect: 1. accounting record8 were not kept in of the Chorty as required by 8Ktion 130 of the Act., or 2. the accounts do rnt 8¢cord WFth th088 records., or 3. the accounts do not comply with applicab￿ reqUIren￿nts concemlng the ftxm and content of accounts set Oul in Ihe Charitieg {Accounts 8nd Reportsl Regulations 2008 other than any requirement that the xcounts give a Irue arKI fair view which is not matter considered as part of an indeFendont oxamination. I have no ¢on¢ems arKI have come xross other matters in connectx)n with the examination to which attention shoukl be drawn in thi8 report in order to enable 8 proper undernlanding of the accounts to be rtach￿. SWJn￿I.' Narrn.. lan Campbell Relevant professional qualffiGation or membership of professional bodies: Aswciate Member of the Chartered Institute of Management A¢¢¢xJntsnts Affiliate Member of the A880Ci8tion ol Irdependent Examiners Addres8: 27 VKtoria Stre8t, Bury St Edmunds. Suffolk IP33 38B Data: 24,40 Lz