Wear Catchment Pilot

Wear Catchment Pilot

Communications and Engagement Plan

1.0 Background

The Wear pilot is one of 25Defra sponsored pilots to test how successful working in partnership can be to deliver the outcomes of the Water Framework Directive (WFD).

The pilot consists of 15 rivers in the Wear Catchment, located around Durham. The15 water bodies in the Wear pilot were selected because they are less than good status/potential, have complex issues, are in areas of mixed land use and include a mix of affluent and deprived areas.

2.0 Aim

The aim of the Wear Pilot is that by 2020, Durham’s rivers will run clear, teeming with wildlife and be enjoyed by all.

2.1 Supporting aims

To support the above statement, we want to:

• Overcome barriers to access to enable people to enjoy a healthy water environment
• Gain an understanding of relevant current activity in the area and what local people want to see improved about their rivers
• Engaging local businesses and residents to help them understand the impacts of their actions on water quality and how they can change these
• Increase the number of volunteers working on relevant projects in the area
• Work with others to gain a clear understanding of how to improve water quality in each of the water bodies
• Identify priority actions to improve water quality in each of the water bodies
• Improve the range and quantity of fish and eel stocks in the River Wear and its tributaries
• increase wildlife and native habitats in line with Durham BiodiversityAction Plan and other strategies to address water quality and non-native species
• Identify opportunities where land management and land use change has a beneficial effect on the water environment

3.0 Stakeholder analysis

4.0 Key messages(taken from outcomes paper and main ‘themes’ outlined within this – this still needs further work to agree, determine actions & prioritise)

• Water Quality (Minewater; Agricultural diffuse; Urban diffuse; Misconnections; Phosphates etc)
• Fisheries (Physical barriers; habitat; poaching, continuing to improve salmon & sea trout stocks etc)
• Biodiversity (More key wildlife; non-native species, habitat management, BAP habitat
• Planning & Flood Resiliance (Promotion of GI –native woodland & wetlands; SuDS); Green Space & healthy living; multile benefits for water quality and overland flow

5.0 Action plan

• Raise awareness of Wear Pilot progress to Environment Agency and the wider stakeholder group attending the workshop.

• Develop pilot logo
• Name for partnership
• Agreed vision

• Launch of consultation over catchment plan - ‘Wear Week’
• Article(s) produced for LA publications, EA fisheries newsletter
• Other free/low cost channels across partnership

• GroundworkNE pilot mini-website - digital version of the catchment plan
• Provide other digital content in a news feed on homepage?
• Provide an area to host new content
• Activity updates from projects
• Plain English introduction to the project and the WFD context
• Aim for at least one update per week
• Steering group member guest blogs

• Use social media to build number of followers – spread word of mouth
• Possible campaigns through social media – public sending evidence of pollution in Wear catchment via social media portals?

• Follow an officer for a day - officers take over the twitter feed for a day as they are out on incidents or patrolling with NWL etc.
• Tweet new blog/web content
• Encourage retweets from partners
• Campaigns (TBC)
• Find and follow key stakeholders and promote partnership to them

• Tell story of the wear catchment in images
• Images are geographically tagged to show where projects are located

• Share content from across partnership
• Campaigns as a result of partnership

• Crowdmap
• Huddle
• Phone Apps (e.g. GWNE – Urban Oasis campaign, Ivan Dunn – Wild Watch app)
• Other tools

• e-consultation tool on EA website
• consultation engagement events across Lower Wear Pilot area
• PR to promote consultation
• Free channels across partnership
• Local Authority publications

• Depending on what the evidence tells us – but for example pollution prevention work in industrial estates, misconnections campaigns on specific housing estates
• Joint workshop planned with Transition Durham
• Durham County Council workshop – opportunities mapping
• Proposed Angling workshop with Angling Trust Regional Coordinator
• ‘Wear Week’ event as part of launch of consukltation for catchment plan

• Need a good stock of high resolution images of the River Wear (with iconic scenes around Durham), 15 water bodies (again iconic places people will recognise) and examples of the pollution problems identified on each water body.
• For promotional purposes during events, on the website, promotional material etc

6.0 Evaluation

• Media value of coverage
• Unique visitors to Environment Agency website/Flickr/Facebook pages
• Views of other social media pages
• Followers on Facebook/Twitter
• Feedback from internal Environment Agency teams