Welcome to our first newsletter
Hello! And welcome to the first edition of the Brecks Fen Edge & Rivers Landscape Partnership Scheme’s newsletter.
We’re going to trial producing this newsletter on a monthly basis, so that we can make this a really useful source of information on all things relating to the Brecks Fen Edge & Rivers landscape heritage.
We will include updates on all aspects of the Scheme, including project delivery reports in the ‘Project Focus’ section, an ‘Events’ section to signpost what we hope will be a wide range of exciting events and activities for all ages, interests, and abilities. There will also be other interesting snippets and links to partners activities and volunteering opportunities in the Scheme area and wider Brecks.
The first year of this scheme has seen an unprecedented change in our ability to deliver much of what we had hoped to do, and this newsletter was one of the outputs that had to take a back seat. Despite this, the BFER delivery team, (we will introduce ourselves properly in the next newsletter), has been able to set up the Scheme admin and support, develop good working relationships with all our partners, and gel as a team while working from home. All being well though, we hope to be back in our office at the Carnegie in Thetford soon.
Year 1 Highlights
The Scheme has been busy however, with events and volunteers active in early 2020 bringing impressive River Lark Channel Restoration works delivered by the River Lark Catchment Partnership, and our ‘Outdoor Swimming’ element of the ‘Healing Waters: Breathe in the Brecks’ project delivering a well-attended landowner workshop, followed by a great ‘Introduction to Outdoor Swimming’ event later in early autumn. The Environment Agency have also been busy this year with a major engineering project getting underway at Brandon Staunch to install a new fish pass and canoe pass.
Many of our partners have also been looking at new ways of delivering activities, and many have found their way online, including an introduction to the Brecks’ Fen Edge & Rivers Landscape Partnership Scheme’s ‘Hidden Heritage: discovering Geology and Archaeology’ project, produced by Geologist Tim Holt-Wilson, which led the way during the first lockdown.
The Breckland Society have also delivered a very successful seminar series on Anglo Saxon and Viking East Anglia and Reading the Anglo Saxon and Viking Landscape. A third event ‘Digging Deeper’ has provided an invaluable resource for volunteers wanting to explore the many and varied sources of archaeological and historical information which can be accessed online and used to inform research projects.
Meetings, training events and partnership workshops have also been delivered online when face-to-face was not allowed or possible. Most notaby ones include ‘Supporting Sustainability’ workshops on developing partnerships, working online and external funding, and Citizen Science: Testing the Water, which has trained in excess of 50 volunteers (including the BFER team) in testing lakes, ponds, rivers, streams and ditches in the Brecks for Phosphates and Nitrogen.
I hope you enjoy reading this, and would like to encourage you to provide feedback on content, submit ideas and articles, or links to relevant activities in the Scheme area by contacting bfer.admin@suffolk.gov.uk
BFER Scheme Manager
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