Agenda item

Leila Taheri presented the report continuing with its grassroots conservation and community activities. 

Activities that have taken place since the last meeting in July include:

Ø  Conservation events including 30 volunteers removing litter from the Eastern Marsh, Northern Marsh, and Cool Oak Lane with Barnet Council removing the collected items

Ø  Conservation event in collaboration with two local synagogues including 40 volunteers removing litter from the Eastern Marsh, Northern Marsh, public bird hide, and Cool Oak Lane. Volunteers also started work at the ‘rat feeding station’, removing plastic mesh and preparing the compacted soil for future planting.

Ø  The group also managed to secure pro bono creative time from an advertising agency to produce posters now around the Welsh Harp on bird feeding, and anti littering

Future activities were discussed as outlined in the report and the question was asked if any assistance can be offered with coppicing.  Can CRT or the council assist with the coppicing? Phil Atkinson offered assistance from The Phoenix Canoe club along with Dianne Murphy of the London Wildlife Trust also offered to assist with the loaning of saws. 

Leila Taheri also noted that Barnet Council had generously pledged to match the £1632 that has been crowd funded already and expressed her thanks to Barnet colleagues for this. She asked if the funding could also be matched from Brent. Cllr Mary Mitchell suggested making an application for funding from the ‘Brent Together Towards Zero’ grant which gives organisations up to £5000 for one off projects and initiatives to help tackle the climate and ecological emergency.

Ms Bridger thanked Leila and the wider Friends of Welsh harp on all their efforts to date and noted that despite the group already being put in touch with officers at Barnet she would pass on the details of the Biodiversity Officer, Harriet Duffield on future proofing the harp.

Ben Watts gave an update on the nesting islands which have arrived with the team helping to instigate this at a cost of £55k to the Canal River Trust via a third party. The next thing to look forward to is the scheduled replacement of the breeding rafts with 40 of these in a terrible state of disrepair. The first ten of these will be arriving soon in a staged replacement plan.  He noted that the heavy siltation at various points of the Marsh will affect the placing of the rafts until there is a longer term plan on the silt issue however lots of good work has been continuing and the vision is the next thing will be arriving soon.  

Lewis Elmes informed that there was funding available within the Environment Agency for community groups that could possibly be sourced and agreed to see if this could be a possible source of funding for the harp in relation to the water testing and silt issue.

ACTION: LEWIS ELMES & DOUG ALEXANDER

Manfred Starkl gave an offer of assistance of boats in relation to the placing of the breeding rafts on the harp