A catchment project across North Buckinghamshire delivering biodiversity net gain through wetland habitat creation, combined with flood risk reduction through the implementation of Natural Flood Management (NFM) measures.

Leaky dam over a river

Freshwater Habitats Trust is working in partnership with Buckinghamshire Council to identify and assess opportunities to improve the freshwater landscape across multiple North Buckinghamshire river catchments. The project seeks to deliver biodiversity net gain through wetland habitat creation, combined with flood risk reduction through the implementation of Natural Flood Management (NFM) measures.

Where we're working

The project covers a wide area across North Buckinghamshire, encompassing the following waterbody catchments:

  • Newton Longville Brook
  • Loughton Brook
  • Horwood Tributary
  • Claydon Brook
  • Claydon Brook (Downstream of Granborough)
  • Claydon Brook Tributary
  • Fleet Marston Brook, Denham Brook and Pitchcroft Brook West
Woman standing next to pond with blue sky and trees behind.

The first year of the project is in two stages

1 A baseline monitoring programme

This will assess the current status of the freshwater environment, enabling the success of net gain measures to be reviewed in the future. We’ll be surveying wetland plants at landscape scale across the whole project area and updating records of priority species like Spined Loach and Great Crested Newt.

2 Detailed hydrological modelling of river catchments

Delivery of a series of wetland habitat creation and restoration works, and the implementation of a series of natural flood management features