Parks, leisure and the arts Irk Valley

Reclaiming the Irk River Valley

Reclaiming the Green Space:

Many areas of land within the Irk Valley are reclaimed sites. These are sites that may have been used for landfill, then landscaped and left alone. These can have complicated management problems, such as soil quality and land stability. The Irk Valley helps to co-ordinate the prioritised management of these sites, consulting with specialists in relation to these problems to ensure that land is safe for both environmental and recreational development. The challenge is to set up maintenance and management programmes for these areas to allow for their sustainable development.

Reclaiming the Irk Valley Waterways:

The River itself is improving. After many years of decline in 1997 the River's water quality status was poor. This - in essence - meant the River supported very little ecological life. The most recent assessment of the River's water quality, in 2007, was determined as Moderate meaning that the River is now supporting ecological life but there is still room for improvement.

The aim of the Environment Agency is to improve the water quality to Good by 2027. Although this may seem like a long way in to the future environmental improvements are attempting to undo years of neglect, nature will take time to recover.

To view the full detail on the River Irk water quality please see Annex B of the North West River Basin Management Plan page 210

Water quality improvements are achieved through reducing or eliminating any pollutants coming directly from an adjacent site and encouraging good ecological developments of adjacent sites; further encouraging more wildlife to utilise the River.

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