Kira Besh - Catchment Coordinator - Environment Agency

The River Leen is a blue-green artery running through the length of Nottingham. It flows through and past woodland, parks, playing fields, nature reserves, neighbourhoods, hospitals, post-industrial land, business and other built-up areas. Some people even don't know that it's there. But when you discover it, it’s a secret that you have to share and shout about.

For an urban river, its wildlife is diverse including: water vole, brown trout, eel and otter. But their habitat is fragmented and in need of restoring and healing. There are some great bits to visit and other areas of the river that need some love. It suffers from litter, sewer and misconnected pipe pollution, barriers to fish, a constrained river channel, and surface water pollution from streets and drives. In some areas, it hidden from view, rendering it ‘invisible’.

My involvement in the Leen, as Catchment Coordinator with the Environment Agency, is to bring people together to help improve the river and its tributaries to ‘good ecological status’. This means addressing the challenges the Leen faces through collaborative efforts. This includes drawing from our imagination, creativity and good examples from other urban rivers. We also need to pool knowledge and expertise. There is no ‘easy fix’ as the issues are very ingrained. But, with a little more love, care and attention, we can collectively begin to make the Leen river corridor a healthier and more inclusive space for wildlife and people.