Shropshire Middle Severn

There are over 3800 miles of watercourse running through rural Shropshire and urban Telford. Pressure on this complex of catchments and waterways is immense, nutrient enrichment, sedimentation, chemical pollution, water availability [too much, too little], water quality, disjointed flows and degraded river habitats are the challenges to be faced. Primarily focusing on the catchments of the Perry, Roden, Tern and urban river systems of Telford the 45 plus partners of the Shropshire Middle Severn catchment partnership have been working together since 2012. Project delivery by various partner combinations is not exclusively confined to the north Shropshire rivers and meres but all projects aim to benefit the overall recovery and improvement of river ecology function and catchment management including our primary catchments.

The partnership is guided by a small steering group and meets as a whole group regularly. In a predominantly rural area we are fortunate that farming sector representation is strong.

The aims of the partnership are to support co-ordination of effort, sharing of information, promotion of debate and the development and delivery of projects to address the causes of poor river health. Projects past and present include topics such as urban/rural sustainable drainage, river restoration, natural flood management, agricultural practice, innovative water dependant habitat recovery and creation, community training in river health monitoring, public awareness raising campaigns, aquatic and riverine species conservation and land management investment to tackle diffuse pollution.