Welcome to The Welland Rivers Trust

All of us value water in our landscape very highly – you just have to think how much a house with a sea, or river- view costs, compared with one down the road. Or, think how many of us flock to the sea, river, or lake-side on a sunny weekend.  We enjoy water. We enjoy swimming, boating, just walking beside it looking.  With that enjoyment comes a desire - we want it to be clean, sparkling, with white waves, not grey or brown ones; we want it to have wildlife - from the ducks our kids can feed, to the fish that we could catch (and sometimes eat), to the osprey that we can now admire over Rutland. We want "them" to look after it for us. We know that river water has become cleaner as a result of "their" efforts. We know that clean water comes out of our taps because "they" treat it. And we don't like to think how our waste water gets turned into either of these kinds of clean water by "them"!

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Generally we have become, over the past few decades, more and more concerned about our environment and about water. We realise that, if we leave it up to "them" entirely, we do not, and will not, get the environment that we want. Not because "they" are no good at what they do, but because "they" need help to do it effectively. The way humans manage our world is more and more complex, the problems we have given our environment are becoming more and more difficult to solve. "They" are paid to do the technical and detailed work, but it is us who are paying them. All over the British Isles, ordinary people who appreciate and want to protect their water environment are joining together with people who directly use it - such as farmers, fishermen, boaters, walkers – and with some of "them" – such as water engineers, fisheries officers, water company managers – to form new charities dedicated to their river. About 35 such groups have come together under an umbrella body which supports them – the Association of Rivers Trusts (ART).

About two years ago, a varied group of people, including teachers, farmers, water scientists, anglers, management consultants and retirees, were brought together by an initiative from a few of them, to form a "Steering Group" for a Welland Rivers Trust. They met every month and were joined by new people as the word spread around local organisations, until there were around 30 people in the group. Supported by money from the Environment Agency and a grant from the Heritage Lottery fund through the ART, the group engaged solicitors to form the Welland Rivers Trust Ltd and then register it as a charity. At the beginning of 2010 WRT started holding 'RiverLife" days in partnership with local angling societies, schools and environmental organisations. Then we held 4 Public Meetings at Market Harborough, Stamford, Deeping and Spalding in June 2010. Now WRT is up and running, a mix of "them" and "us", and would welcome your help......