Our achievements

• Fenced 800 m section of the Little Chess to reduce poaching from cattle and increase vegetation and suitable habitat for water voles.
• Launched a suite of citizen-science initiatives and training to monitor water quality; currently have 40 members of the public engaged.
• Created a baseline document called the State of the River Chess, showing where we are now and where we need to get to.
• Increased the capacity of water quality monitoring through the deployment of two new sensors, which monitor nitrate, phosphate, oxygen levels, velocity, turbidity, pH, temperature, ammonia, dissolved organic matter, and more.
• Employed five members of staff: Project Coordinator, Chess Farming Adviser, Engagement Officer, Citizen Scientist Coordinator and the Secondment of Professor Kate Heppell from Queen Mary University of London.
• Through the Herts and Middlesex Wildlife Trust, engaged with farmers to complete surveys of agricultural land. This work will be continued by the Chess Farming Officer.
• Hosted Masters students on the Chess, who are collecting and analysing data on chalk streams.
• Started a River Restoration project at Restore Hope Latimer, which aims to create optimum habitat for water vole population expansion.
• Lobbied government on the plight of chalk streams.
• Identified priority habitats within the Chess Catchment.

Future projects include:

• Expand the Chalk, Cherries and Chairs model of Tracking the Impact into the Chess catchment, collecting survey data on birds, butterflies and plants across set locations.
• Build a website to showcase the work we are currently undertaking.
• Use targeted education in schools and with wider demographics to illustrate the need for water efficiency.
• Train volunteers in managing Invasive Non-Native Species.
• Deploy two new sensors in the lower reaches of the Chess, which will focus on collecting water quality data at Loudwater and Rickmansworth.
• Create and develop a Chess Catchment Farming Cluster to look at linking landscapes and habitats through farmer engagement.
• Prioritise projects to receive landowner grant funding within the catchment.
• Build public engagement through a broad range of opportunities within the catchment and enable community involvement through funding streams, such as the community grants.
• Build partnership/stakeholder engagement through the delivery of on-the-ground projects.