Environment Agency Grant 2023

Small Pool Refurbishment

Our small pool has been mostly unfishable for several years, with the bank and access way long gone and no longer accessible. With an increasing membership, the whole club felt it was time to breathe new life into this once-forgotten piece of Hunters Pool.

As you can see from the “Before” and “After” images above, although idyllic, the small pool was unusable. Not now!

After about 40 man-days of work over several Working Parties, numerous planting of Rhododendra, Wildflowers, several kilos of Grass Seed and a Mini Digger, this is where we’re currently up to…

Aquatic Solutions

The committee put out a call to the membership during several working parties and we managed to clear the access and began to make it a lovely area of Hunters Pool again, especially for the Pole. However, we could only restore about three pegs. The original West Bank had disappeared long ago, and it was only about half a meter wide, making it completely impractical, especially when carrying all the necessary equipment. It was also very shallow, with most of the water that falls off the hills coming into Hunters via the small pool, silt had accumulated year-on-year.

So, we contacted the Environment Agency and they advised us to apply for another grant. We did so, and a few months later, with some negotiation, we were awarded the money we needed to dredge the pool, which had filled with silt, and use that silt to build a bank about three meters wide.

Aquatic Solutions was the only company suitable for the job. They came, quoted, dredged, built the bank, and invoiced us precisely on the money we were granted. It was brilliant!

We extend a massive thank you to everyone at the Environment Agency who made all of this possible. Without them, we could not have done it.

If you need Aquatic Solutions’ contact details, they are as follows:

www.aquatic-solutions.co.uk
Tel: 01788 810614
Tom’s Mobile: 07368 895479
E-mail: ben@aquatic-solutions.co.uk

We would not have been able to complete the project without their assistance, and we highly recommend them. If you require a more personal recommendation, please fill out the form on our contact us page.

Ongoing Small Pool Improvements

As we go, we’ll upload pictures showing the new bank’s evolution from a muddy bog to a beautiful bank, full of grass and wildflowers and, eventually, with Windmill members fishing too!