Riverlution's August 2026 Newsletter

News and Wins
New Intern We want to say a warm welcome to Daisy, who is joining us as an intern from the University of Sheffield.  Daisy is studying Global Sustainable Development at university and will be doing a 70-hour internship with us. Daisy is looking forward “to meet people and learn about riparian sustainability in action, especially how local community is so central to sustainable change.” We’re glad to have you with us, Daisy and hope that you enjoy your internship.
	Community Engagement Officer A second warm welcome to Sky, who has joined us part-time as our new Community Engagement Officer. Sky will be helping us to connect with and recruit participants for our skills programmes. For 5 years Sky has been and still is a professional wrestler, enjoying every second of it! Sky is looking forward “to meeting new people getting them on the Skills Scheme, helping out with social media designing of posts where possible and outreaching companies/businesses to help branch out.” Welcome aboard Sky, we’re happy to have you on the team.
Volunteer Days August was another successful month for volunteer days. Having had one day with the Environment Agency and another with the RSC board. The EA volunteer day was so successful that within a week we had two more groups from the EA requesting to do volunteer sessions in September and October! One of the volunteers from the EA group, Holly, gave a wonderful quote, saying; “I know I can speak for everyone when I say how rewarding the day was, not only seeing the difference we made but also understanding the impact after Simon’s talk. I was especially grateful for the support from the Riverlution staff (Martin, Roxy, Rosie, and Caden) on the day. They were great at explaining the process and flagging health and safety, and really looked after the group. I’d love to be able to go back and complete more of the project, and I’d recommend Riverlution again.” Volunteer sessions are a brilliant way for us to raise awareness of what we do with our partners and to bring them on board physically and show the impact being made.
	Operation Pennywort – Hull This month we started a new project with East Mercia River Trust, in partnership with Cambridgeshire Community Foundation and Anglian Water’s Thriving Community Fund. The project is called ‘Operation Pennywort’, with the aim to survey floating pennywort, mapping the extend of the infestation of pennywort. Adam and Oliver made a great start working on the River Witham and have now surveyed a 20km.
Publications Recently, we’ve had a few different publications released about what we do at Riverlution. Here are the links to a couple of them if you’d like to take a look: https://www.yorkshiretimes.co.uk/article/New-Apprentice-Joins-Riverlution-Scheme-As-Humber-Partnership-Creates-Local-Care- https://www.fenews.co.uk/skills/new-apprentice-joins-award-winning-partnership-powered-by-procurement/
Monthly Focus – Five Weirs Walk
Five Weirs Walk project We’re currently in discussions with multiple parties to apply for funding and partnership to begin work on restoring the broken section of the Five Weirs Walk. We have written a proposal to send to local businesses that have shown interest in supporting the restoration of the Five Weirs Walk, this proposal is to bring multiple companies together as a single partner to fund the initial work to clear and manage this currently closed section of the walk, so that the heavier construction work can be done to re-open the walk. Projects like this are hugely impactful to local communities, allowing local people to utilise this walk that connects them to local rivers and stretches of nature throughout the city. An initial meeting to gauge interest was organised by Simon Ogden, which was hugely successful and highlighted how meaningful it would be to so many people if this project can successfully be put into action! The EA volunteer day held this month was a first trial volunteer day on the closed section of the walk to determine the amount of work that needs doing and it’s safe to say that there is a massive amount to do, but the difference made in just one session was brilliant. Below is a before and after of the stretch of path that they were working on. Before After!