When the Steering Group for the WRT started, an early agreement between members was to become involved in any existing projects to try to improve the river for all, as well as to initiate new ones, all up the Welland. So far we have become involved in half a dozen, which stretch from fish habitat improvements on the ”Wide Welland” at Crowland to current deflectors (these are straight objects, like railway sleepers, which make the current zig-zag from side to side to change its form and increase the variety of different habitats in a stream that has been channelized in the past) in the headwaters of the Eye Brook.

A 'tough nut to crack’ is the Welland as it runs through Market Harborough. This is where the river is very narrow. Harborough is only a few miles as the crow flies from the source at Sibbertoft, but the river running through the town has been very severely dredged, deepened and straightened in the past few decades, so that now it is more like a linear waste bin for supermarket trolleys than a living river.

Despite the dredging and the rubbish, the river still does have life. Small fish shoals can be seen in abundance every spring and summer and kingfishers defy the crowds to dart under the bridges between car parks, town centre and supermarkets.

One of the early activities of WRT was to organise a ‘Riverlife’ day at Harborough in February, when over a dozen brave citizens from the town collected samples of animal life from the muddy waters. Quite apart from the fish, healthy bullheads and stickleback, we found over 25 families of invertebrates – ‘creepy crawlies’, all of which indicate that the river is clean.

So the challenge now is both to clean up the debris, rubbish and other wastes and try to make it look more like an attractive river, rather than a drain. With that done, we can start to make people aware of it as an amenity and encourage them to be proud of it, rather than regard it as an eyesore as they do at present.

The WRT had a very well attended public meeting in May, but before this, it had joined with HIT (The Harborough Improvement Team) also the Civic Trust and the River Care group, to seek funding to start this process from Leicestershire Together.

This is partnership between voluntary and statutory organisations, which this year made a budget of £20,000 available for each “Have Your Say” Community Forum area. “Have Your Say” is a new, participatory way of making decisions about funding, with residents and community groups making spending proposals and voting on them. It starts with residents and community groups sharing their ideas through a workshop style event, which was held towards the end of April 2010. The HIT made an application to seek to improve the Welland.

• The HIT application worked and £5,250 has just been awarded. It will pay for equipment and for volunteers to pick litter and clean up the banks; it will pay for an information panel on the flora and fauna along the river through the town close to Sainsbury’s Car Park so it is in a prominent area). It will support increased and sympathetic planting on the river bank that takes account of the rise and fall in the river level and develop a project with local schools and local arts groups to document the 4 different seasons in the life of the river.

This is the beginning of the development of awareness and concern for the river, which will lead to a more pleasant, more natural and more nature-rich, river corridor through the town, which brings the countryside into the town centre.