FOMV

Midwinter is generally the best time to disturb and move plants – if you have to – so we’ve been out making living hedges and sculptures from willow in the last few weeks. The smaller branches are easy to bend after a period of curing. Once planted in the ground they develop roots and sprout new leaves in the winter. We were happy to see commuters beep their horns as we installed a heart-shaped version on Pin Mill Brow. They are already putting out new shoots, so watch out for them in the coming months.

This blog is not just for good news, though. We are much less happy about the unprecedented floods that came with the New Year. The Medlock burst its banks by at least a metre and the water company, United Utilities, released huge quantities of untreated sewage into the river. After years of public pressure, you can now see in real time where sewage is being released, or has been released, in your area:

https://www.unitedutilities.com/better-rivers/storm-overflow-map/

Some of the pictures here give you an idea of how critical the situation is in the Medlock, with rafts of sewage and dams of plastic bottles. In places the banks are strewn with wet wipes and sanitary products, along with tyres, shopping trollies and children’s toys from rubbish dumped upstream. Be careful around the river as some of the paths have been covered with mud and sand.

We will clean up, as we always have done, and keep fighting for the importance of this area.