Following the devastating floods of Boxing Day 2015 in the Calder Valley, in the spring of 2016 “Slow The Flow” put together a proposal to undertake a Natural Flood Management (NFM) project in Hardcastle Crags, north of Hebden Bridge. The project proposal comprised the construction of leaky woody debris dams of various types and sizes alongside restoration of 48 ha of woodland at Hardcastle Crags National Trust, which is designated as PAWS (Plantation on Ancient Woodland Sites). The proposal was successful and work began in April 2017, under the management of the National Trust (NT) and the Environment Agency (EA), with funding from Defra. The vast majority of the 800+ leaky dams constructed there now are in feeder streams that flow into Hebden Water and Crimsworth Dean Beck.
Six years into the project, a new blog discusses the detailed findings from the monitoring of the ‘leaky dam’ interventions at Hardcastle Crags NT. And, for the first time, it’s possible to ask whether the project has worked – read the blog in full here
