Work has started on 'rewiggling' a brook in Wigan that has been straight for 100 years. Lancashire Wildlife Trust said Brookside Brook, at Victoria Fields between Hindley and Bickershaw, was once a meandering minor waterway until it was straightened along with its valley by mining companies around 100 years ago, during the Great Depression.
Restoring a natural watercourse
A team from the trust, with support from the Environment Agency and Wigan Council, is working to make the brook 'wiggle' once again. The trust said the intervention to introduce a more meandering watercourse will form a more natural habitat for wildlife, with pools, riffles and embankments for creatures to burrow.
Slowing flood waters
A spokesperson for the group said the work was likely to have other positive effects. They said: “Crucially, the works will also help to slow the flow of water into a high-risk flood zone along the Hey Brook corridor. At the same time, we are also working to clear paths on both sides of the valley to make the area more accessible for local people.”
In August this year, the team also did environmental work at nearby Barlow’s Farm and Victoria Fields in Hindley. Working with Forestry England, the trust created ponds and building bunds around the meadow to make a wetland area for flood defence and to create a habitat for wildlife.
Historical mining context
At the time the brook was straightened, dozens of coal mines still operated in the area. Indeed when the industry was nationalised in 1947, 34 mines remained in the borough, with the area’s last deep mines at Bickershaw and Parsonage in Leigh closing in 1992.
Funding and wider scheme
This waterway work has been funded by The Veolia Environmental Trust and Wigan Council and is part of the wider Wigan Greenheart Landscape Recovery Scheme, which is restoring habitats and protecting wildlife across the borough, some of it former colliery land. The Wigan recovery scheme covers a combined area of more than 1,400 hectares, including the Flashes of Wigan and Leigh National Nature Reserve.
Great Manchester wetlands partners are working together, making interventions to aid nature recovery. The landscape recovery scheme is one of 22 in the first round of pilots for this environmental land management scheme throughout England.
