Projects in the Wye Catchment

Updated: July 2024

Wye Soils, Nutrients and Compliance project

Herefordshire Rural Hub and the Environment Agency are working together to promote responsible and resilient farming practices in the Wye catchment. As part of the Wye Soils, Nutrients and Compliance project four videos have been produced which promote good practice on farms. In these videos Herefordshire farmers share their approach to water and nature friendly farming. You can view more videos on Farm Herefordshire’s Youtube channel here(External link)

Wyescapes; Food, Nature, Water

The Wyescapes project launched on 8 May 2024 with its inaugural meeting held on the banks of the Wye in Hereford. The project brings together 40 land holdings covering more than 4000 hectares of land along the river corridor, spanning the county of Herefordshire from north to south.

The farmers and land managers are working to identify actions and changes they can make to restore the rivers’ health such as reducing nutrient use, reverting high risk fields from arable cropping to grassland, creating new wetlands, floodplain meadows and woodlands.

The project’s long term aim is to restore the Wye catchment to a healthy condition, so its rivers and their tributaries can support the unique wildlife that depends on them, provide clean and plentiful water, be resilient to climate change, mitigate flood risk, provide places for people to enjoy – all while supporting sustainable food production.

The project has now begun a 2 year Development phase during which the participating land managers and project partners will be:

- Identifying the land management changes they would like to deliver,

- Baselining to quantify the benefit in terms of nutrients, carbon and biodiversity that will be achieved by the land management changes

- Securing long term public and private funding to enable delivery during the potential 20 year implementation phase

- Develop legal agreements to govern the delivery and funding agreements for the implementation phase.

The bespoke agreements of successful projects are expected to deliver environmental benefits for the next 20 years and beyond.

Visit the project website(External link)

(External link)(External link)(External link)(External link)