Norfolk's Forgotten Chalk Stream
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- Опубликовано: 20 май 2022
- I made this film (as Outhouse Filmworks) to illustrate the state of the Gaywood River which flows from gin-clear springs on the edge of the Norfolk chalk ridge down and through King's Lynn.
It is subject of many abuses along the way and yet it seems none of the responsible authorities are currently willing to do anything to help restore it to the river it once was, and that the people of West Norfolk deserve it to be again.
Gaywood River Revival, an independent campaigning group has set up to raise public awareness and persuade the authorities to take the action that they know they should be taking, but for whatever reasons are not.
Take a look at gaywoodriverrevival.org and follow on the socials.
There’s an update film too.
Other films (not all about rivers) at outhousefilmworks.uk
Well done Peter highlighting this. Let’s hope you can raise enough outrage to get some changes and restoration. We are supposed to be one of the top developed nations and we drain sewage into out our water ways and pump out the water for irrigation.
Thanks Phil. I think it will be a long haul, especially for the Gaywood which has been subject to abuse in recent years from a whole range of sources causing outrageous pollution, over abstraction and lamentable river “management”.
That said, I sense that support is growing and the tide is turning in the river’s favour.
Top developed to be flushed down the toilet 🚽
Yes, imagine what they are doing in undeveloped nations
@@clithers long haul? We have Facebook and Twitter to publish such disastrous behaviour, don't just shrug your shoulders..
@@OmmerSyssel Social media is indeed a valuable tool and it’s being deployed by a group (of which I’m a member) called Gaywood River Revival. You’ll find us at GaywoodRiverRevival.org That said the farmers, landowners, Environment Agency, the Rivers Trust and many other parties have to be persuaded to come together to implement a whole catchment plan. They are a long way apart currently.
This is extremely well-written and narrated. I'm amazed it's only got 30k views. It's a pity RUclips's algorithms didn't recognise the importance of some uploads and recommend them, even if it was just locally. This kind of damage is happening everywhere. I grew up in Ireland and watched the destruction of the peat bogs and associated ecosystems. It's only now that the authorities are taken action, much of it too late!
never forget: youtube is google. And they dont pay TAXES
A fantastic video, people are becoming more and more interested in the quality of the natural environment around them so I hope people in that area spend some of their money, time and votes on restoring this river.
I think this is becoming a political issue. Not specifically a party issue yet, but there are decisions that have to be made at local and national levels about policies that will have huge implications for our environment. Decisions that are currently being kicked down the road because they may be unpalatable with some people who are doing very nicely under the current regime. Always follow the money to see who’s benefiting.
How many of you upset people are actually buying ecological products, preventing our nature being ruined and drinking water poisoned?
Be the change, stop nagging and follow your mouth!
As a individual who also advocates for the health & well being of our natural waters in the western United States - I truly hope you your neighbors are heard, understood, and serious progress is made to restore this stream back into being.
Your video should be shown to a town council meeting - it is very well done, brief, and to the point!
Posted with love and high hopes :)
Ironically, I kept getting ads for garden fertilizers through this video.
That's deeply ironic. I wonder if Google are listening! If they are "Good afternoon bots, have a lovely Sunday"
This brings me to tears. How bad river pollution has got in recent years is a disgrace! This government have ruined this country.
Good luck with restoration…such a beautiful stream should be cherished ❤ especially by the people lucky enough to live nearby 😊
Thanks George. It will entail lots of agencies “seeing the light“ and agreeing to work together. There’s not been much sign of that thus far and I think it will take a lot more public outcry to shift that position. The shouting starts here!
@@clithers the gov. “Save nature!” Ok. We will. The gov. “No. That’s inconvenient.”
Bollocks
I'm so glad I happened upon your video. As a child I had a friend who lived opposite the farm at the source of the river. One morning when I was staying over he showed me the amazing bubbling springs and we spent the day wading and following the river. Such wonderful memories.
Such a shame to see how the river has been abused. I hope you can make a real difference to this.
Bet that water was ice cold on a hot day! Did you try any of it, if it was safe to do so?
My city implemented an amazing project to divert streams into artificial oxbows where the water slows down, silt drops out, and pollutants are removed.
It's been spectacularly successful, and each of the artificial wetland areas is teeming with birdlife and forms a wonderful urban park.
What city is that? sounds cool
I live in Australia and was randomly recommended this but loved the video and the dedication to finding out the root cause. Chalk streams look like an ecological bounty. Keep them safe!
I was born in Kings Lynn back in the early 1970's. A river miandered past my house and as children we would play in and around the river. I would fish with my father and friends alike. Years later I would join the army and spend twenty-five plus years overseas. On my return i took it upon myself to visit many areas I went to as a child - both in Norfolk and Suffolk where I grew up. The river where once I played as a child was no longer there and had in fact been turned into a housing development with underground waterways being put in to save redirecting the river. Even now, here in Norfolk where I still live there are many changes to the environment. New housing is overtaking many parts of our countryside which has changed forever the once tranquil country lanes and streams into nothing more than a building site. Home england in partnership have bought hundreds of acres of land all over Norfokl in many small market towns and villages in an effort to expand. This expansion has choked the life from our County and has changed it forever. In an effort to house people that are not even from here and that do not appreciate the area I for one am utterly heartbroken it has come to this. Looking back I ask myself what I thought I was doing when i joined the army. I thought I was protecting my country. However, all I was doing was allowing those from within destroy what we had. England is no more. A once beatutiful part of the world now nothing more that a money making machine for construction and destruction. I'm probably not alone in many of my thoughts on this, and this video certainly shows only but a mere snippet of the destruction of my home County. This is Nelson's County...or it was.
> englishman spends 25 years living in another country
> is furious people from other countries are living in england
can you not see the irony
@@bradleywilliams1372 Some of us make sacrifices so people like you can make comments like this....see the stupidity?
@@bradleywilliams1372 or.... man spends 25 years trying to sort other shit holes out only to return to find whilst he was away they've turned his home into a shit hole too.
Thank you for this. My late Dad grew up in Gaywood and often spoke of the river which ran close to his home, but also of Black Drain which actually goes under the Gaywood river near Queen Elizabeth Avenue. I must admit I didn't realise this was a chalk stream too.
I grew up in Heacham in the 70s and remember many happy times spent along, on and often in the Heacham River. We even collected water cress from it by the bridge on the Sedgeford/Heacham road. My best friend live in Snettisham so had similar fun with the Ingol.
In Holland the dunes have the same function as the chalk in Norfolk. Springs come up at the edge of the dunes. Therefore Haarlem had lots of beer breweries in the middle ages. There still is the Brouwers Kolkje, the spring of the brewers, where very clean water comes to the surface.
Proberly the best water in the world
Really? As far as I know Dutch waters are heavily polluted from extreme production of pigs... You are in ongoing conflict with EU regulations while your nature is under severe pressure from heavily polluting farmers.
Thanks for that, it was so informative. Very depressing what we have done to our rivers. Just hope that as more of us become aware of he issues, the more chance of restoration. I was brought up in South London, it amazing how the Wandle is being transformed, so it can be done if the will is there. Good luck with your efforts. Peter
Thanks. I’m glad you got something out of the film. It’s certainly a long hall working on multiple fronts to get sensible strategies in place. I’m glad that the Wandle is getting a bit of TLC It’s easy to get the impression that the Gaywood River is just too much of a challenge for the EA and Drainage Board to even think about tackling. That said, we’re not going away!
@@outhousefilmworks2075 thanks, keep up the good fight!
And I should have said the film was of outstanding quality
Your excellent film breaks my heart. It is incredible to me that notwithstanding the current rush toward river/water catchment restoration/enhancement and all that entails, your river remains ignored. It’s a scandal if the truth be known. If you haven’t already, Kkick up a stink and try to activate the local community, schools etc…perhaps that’ll get the party started. ❤
As someone who go's fly fishing on rivers I see it first hand having fished for 60 year's , so great video Peter .
Superb....fantastic balance between honest reporting of degradation and what can be done to fix it.
Thank you Les. Much appreciated.
Good telling Peter from Gary here in Southern Ontario, thank you for your work.
It's irritating how long it takes for people to realize just how easy it is to correct these problems.
Fascinating, if depressing film. A similar sad tale to the Costa Beck in North Yorkshire. A century ago, it was one of the finest grayling rivers in the country. Now it is regularly polluted with untreated sewage, fish farm effluent and silt. The situation has become so bad that Pickering Flyfishers and Fish Legal are taking legal action against Yorkshire Water. Fingers crossed for the right result.
The state of our rivers and streams is a national scandal.🤬😡 Things have got much worse since Thatcher's Government privatised the water companies in the late 1980s.
Very important subject, well done & with beautiful footage. Best of luck in environmental improvement!
(New York, USA)
sometimes you can just tell when a video is going to be excellent. the understated title was a dead giveaway. very well produced, i wish you luck in restoring this river. in Texas many of our rivers have been dammed excessively, siphoned for agricultural water, and polluted with fertilizers which destroyed much of the surrounding habitat
The narrative boarders on literature, a pleasure to listen to.
Great video, hope the river can get restored some day soon!
What an excellent film, so sad that it has come to this, but your passion and explanations, will hopefully get the river back to where it should be. We all need to work together for this all over the country, but as you said all the various agencies and organisations need to do their bit. Thank you
Thank you so much for sharing and making this vitally important documentary and committed appeal on behalf of the river, water is life. Its increasingly the most pressurised "commodity" humans have taken for granted for far too long!! Yes to citzens assemblies Yes to citzens science and water monitors! Yes to respecting precious clear clean flowing water. Very moving film and cinematography. I could really feel and hear the stream calling out for our help! And that's for all waterways throughout these precious islands and surrounding seas. Water speaks to all of life.. It is life itself. May we learn to fall in love with water again and truly value it. Thank you so much may this chalk stream get all the help and attention it needs to run clean again and be the thing of beauty and health it once was and will be again. 💦 🐠 🌿 🏞 💧 🌸 🐸 🐛 💦 🐞 🌿 🦋 🌅 💕 🐦
What a wonderful short film, very very well done. Being from S Wales Norfolk has been the destination place for 5 family holidays since 2012, we love the area. It’s quite staggering what we put in our rivers, I remember swimming in the sea as a child and seeing all sorts of filth ebbing in the tides of Porthcawl ( my local beach back then, a very popular place) which is, and was back then the destination of thousands of holiday makers.
I hope this film helped your cause, you need to make more you have a talent for telling the story of the natural world 👏👏👏
Caught my first fish on the walks seventy years ago never forgot that moment such a shame to see it now.
I used to catch sticklebacks in the little rivulet that ran round by the swimming pool, just near the bandstand. I keep having people say no, it’s always n like this. Not true!
I’d like to make another film featuring people who knew the river when it was clear and know that it doesn’t have to be like this.
Peter, you and your team did a superb job in creating this presentation - thank you. Your content, delivery, music and overall production drew me in, kept me interested and informed me superbly; so much so, that I'm going to try to visit the rivers next time I visit norfolk and can devote a decent time to it. All the best.
An extremely well thought out and well delivered piece. I could believe my luck when I moved here 8 years ago that I had chalk streams on my doorstep. They are bloody cold though😂😂😂
Excellent video I hope more work is done across the UK ❤
Yes well done thank you for bringing attention to the destruction of our river before it’s to late. I’ve tried so many times to get Solihull council to listen I’m just ignored. They should be fined and the money put to cleaning up the damage to our rivers and county-side 😢
Excellent work here. Thank you.
What a fantastically well narrated, researched and produced video.
Enjoyably educational.
Up the Linnets !
This is one of the most disheartening and depressing videos I have seen. We are an old Norfolk family coming from Grimston, Hillington and Gaywood. To see what is happening to what is a stunningly beautiful county is shocking.
A great video highlighting our beautiful rivers. Thanks.
Wow! The RUclips algorithm finally delivers. Somehow this ended up in my recommended list. What a fantastic, informative and relaxing video. Thank you!
Lovely vid, love your voice and narration, as well as the care you show for nature
Fantastuc video. Please keep at increasing the awareness of the River's plight.
Chalk Streams should all be given special international recognition and protection from source to sea.
Good luck, Peter. Well made video, and a problem that needs solving. All the best.
What a marvellous video. Thank you.
Beautiful, evocative, and thought provoking. Well done
Good luck with your revival efforts. It's a worthwhile cause.
brilliant, thank you. Informative, beautiful and heartbreaking. Well done Peter
This was a lovely gentle wee film. Good luck!
This is an excellent film. Thank you. 🙏🏼
Beautiful video. Very interesting topic.
An excellently written and presented video.
Sad story, very nicely told with footage showing the issues nicely (and without talking heads).
A really well told story - though heartbreaking. Really hoping we can see sense and start to put things right again.
Nicely highlighted, I do hope the people of Kings Lynn see this a make the changes needed. Would be a great asset to the town to be proud of.
Can't believe you only have 324 subs! Great insight, crazy isn't it, something manking can change and improve instead to many groups focus on issues they have no control over whatsoever!
As children we used to dig for flint in the chalk pit for fun. No one forgot, trust me.
A brilliant video, thoughtful , insightful and a strong argument to act and think differently. A specific observation but these problems are universal too.
Well said Peter, and well done.
Beautiful and well made video. Clearly shows from personal experience what can happen when we fuck with nature. Clear, alive waterways turning into turpid, polluted drains 😔
Excellent. Good luck!
What an outstanding video. I have subscribed.
The thumbnail looks like a tube of water magically going over grass.
Thank you, that was very good. I can hear the farmers moaning about the impact on them of restoration work. Good luck.
Heartrending. But this is our world.
Great reporting, subscribed. Cheers from sunny Vienna, Scott
Great video, hope the river can be restored.
There was a small river that ran through where I lived as a kid. I remember going there a lot when I was younger. The water was so clear you could see the rocks in the middle while standing on the shore. I'd roll my pants up to about my knees and walk out into the middle in the calmer, more shallow areas and look underneath rocks for crayfish. A few years ago I visited there and I went to that river, intent on reliving some old memories of my childhood. What I'd found was that the river had become so dirty and filthy that it was unrecognizable. The water was brown, and just looking at the rocks near the shore, I could see that they were covered in algae so thick that you wouldn't even know there were rocks there.
I'm always so disappointed to see rivers, lakes, and streams become polluted and muddy. The lake where I live now is also in a state of disrepair to the point that you can't even fish it anymore; it's full of invasive waterplants and the city has all but abandoned it, instead choosing to spend taxpayer dollars building a homeless camp.
Tells a lot of how primitive a system is when it can't take care of neither its nature nor its poorest citizens! How about accepting taxes are required to create a functional society, like successfully created throughout modern day Europe?
well done, peter. thank you.
Very well made and informative video 👍
Excellent presentation and narration. To be fair to Anglia Water, they have been sponsoring (together with the Environment Agency and the Norfolk Rivers Trust) the Ingoldisthorpe Wetlands to good effect on the River Ingol and are planning to do similar restoration on other rivers.
The Gaywood River may take a lot more effort. Perhaps earthworks could reduce farmland run-off and wiggling would certainly help, but the rubbish situation may prove difficult to control. Vandalism is a growing hobby, unfortunately.
I lived near the Heacham River for quite a few years and it was a pleasure to see, but that did have a few wiggles!
Engineers need to remember rivers have been naturally evolving to be the most efficient version of themselves for 20 millennia +. Dredging/disturbing a river and expecting it to be ok is like rolling a PC down a flight of stairs and wondering why it won't turn on.
great video! all too common of a situation unfortunately
It is all too common but I sense that the tide is metaphorically turning in out favour. There’s lots more to do but I sense that the government is starting to see votes in rivers!
That’s nuts. I saw an old map a week ago and the first and only place I read was Castle Rising. Never heard of it and then straight out the blue after clicking on this vid randomly, Castle Rising is mentioned ! One of those vast amounts of co incidences that mean absolutely nothing.
Well done
Well done good video Road Runoff is a problem in London as I have driven thru deep foam made by Petrol Diesel Windscreen washvtesidues plus rubber dust and grit...
Thanks Chris. Road runoff is the forgotten super-toxin getting onto our rivers. As I understand it the rubber is the prime culprit and Highways departments across the country are failing to maintain soak-aways. Why is there apparently no legal requirement?
Thank you dear Peter for this very well made video and the perfect message it brings. Just a question : At some point in your video I hear a River Warbler ! Don’t tell me that you have these overthere ?😉😉👍👌👏
Excellent presentation. All local people should see this video.
Thank you. That would be great; they are the very people for whom it was made. We need to start getting rather cross about the way the river has been degraded.
MP more than anyone else and they need to go and have a word with Therese Coffey and tell her to pull her finger out.
It's disgusting, in the south and east we have this internationally rare habitat of Chalk Streams mostly found here, with a few examples in Northern France and rather than take pride in them and celebrate them we treat them horrifically. If a tiny percentage of the hours of coverage on radio and tv that moorlands and mountains get were focused on Chalk Streams it would be a great thing. So much has been destroyed in the south and east of England that we should take even more care with this habitat that is found almost nowhere else.
Its been about 10 years since this river last ran clear in town
It's crazy what people will call a river in different parts of the world. Where I'm from, we'd call that a ditch or a canal.
Yes good luck and dont give up.
Have you enlisted the help of the Wild trout trust?
Hmm reminding your MP and council of this may remind them of their duties..and the effect of water privatisation has done to our rivers!
Great film, I love our Norfolk chalk streams and I'm blessed to have access to fish the babingley. Unfortunately the EA isn't fit for purpose, they are completely toothless. Unfortunately money, power and corruption get in the way of what should be a normal practice.
Thanks. Yes, The Gaywood seems to be uniquely subject to being ignored which creates a situation which simply deteriorates further. Coordinated action by all agencies and “stakeholders” Is the only way to achieve what is eminently possible.
How sad. I hope there is an effort to restore it.
There is a campaign to restore the river but there is also a lot of resistance from the responsible agencies who insist along the lines of “there’s nothing wrong and if there is, it’s not our fault.”
@@clithers try to remind them it’s not about blame. It’s about healing.
Great film only wish it wasn't necessary. I'm a visitor to the area a few times a year and it's sad to see man's influence harming the natural world yet again. I hope you raise awareness and turn the tide on this sad state of affairs.
Thank you, had not realized this was a chalk stream seeing it out of the car window assumed it was a man made drain. I have on occasion seen the Nar looking murky and fretted, these Norfolk chalk streams at some point in the past must have been Salmon rich, god only knows how if reintroduced they would find their way up stream to the gravel beds. Maybe on the Nar just maybe..
Thanks David. If you're seeing it from the bypass it is indeed a depressing canalised sight. Take a look at Google Maps and you get a few hints as to how the chalk stream used to meander down past Bawsey ruins to Reffley. With the actual water-course being a lot longer it would have run as different speeds in different areas and been a much more varied habitat for invertebrates and the fish species that depended on them. Sadly very few fish survive in the silted and phosphate loaded water. Take a look at Derby and Sugar Fens (SSSI) and it's quite a different story, despite the still over-enthusiastic clearance regimes which are digging the bed ever deeper into the peat and drying the fens out. Keep an eye out for the reclusive native brown trout.
Not so much Salmon but the close cousin Sea Trout that people keep calling salmon
@@southerneruk I know they are both Salmonids but there are some rather obvious differences, suppose people get over excited seeing a fish and imagination kicks in. I would not mind betting there were salmon in those stream eight thousand years ago.
@@davidprocter3578 There are salmon in them now, but It's never been that many, Salmon are limited to where they can spawn, the gravel as to be between 1in and 2in and the oxygen level as to be right, but a sea trout can spawn in road side ditches with running water, like all the other trout can
@@davidprocter3578 Do you know how to tell the difference
there r a few chalkstreams as u go up the east coast. the ones that r still healthy remain so because they were advertised as good trout fishing ,and fishermen r a vocal group and well versed in the rarety of species within habitat ,so well able to see what bylaws ect can b enforced to keep those species safe . the fishing orginisations r not overly successful in fighting bbusinesses and agriculture but they r loud so can slow them down enough for others to get involved
I appreciate the nuanced explanation of the causes effects and solutions of an environmental hazard, I only wish my American progenitors shared an ounce of your concern. cheers
A very sad story, maybe hope but depends upon peoples will, especially local folk.
Oil Corporations, Monsanto's Roundup and chemical fertilizers strike again? Good video Peter.
Sad what we do to such a valuable resource.
People that litter should be caught and sentenced to multiple years of trash cleanup and the problem would quickly go away. There must be penalties for bad behavior and what could be better than cleaning things up for those that litter.
yet the "authorities" are willing to do many other things of extremely dubious nature.... here is something with a very definite value but greta isnt screaming about this...
Precisely, because fixing a localised problem like this does not benefit our elite class or afford them greater control and economic leverage. Nothing in it for them.
How could we?
Any sign of a happy ending?
Thanks.
Hi Robert
I have no idea how we, or anybody else could be so complacent about a chalk stream. The Gaywood River seems to be deliberately kept off the radar of everyone who could make a difference. Yes, it's problems are complex and multiple but the benefits that could literally flow from the restoration of the catchment are incredibly valuable to the environment, to the ecology and mostly to the people of Lynn which could, once again have a clear, clean and wildlife-rich chalk stream running through their town.
Very well made video and very enraging as well! Who’s the culprit of the incessant dredging? Sounds like you need to put together a local action group to get the gov attention needed
I would guess that it is the local Internal Drainage Boards (farmers). Here in North Yorkshire, the Ouse and Foss Internal Drainage Board have virtially destroyed the River Foss with decades of dredging, straightening and turning it into a nutrient filled drainage channel.
Internal drainage board. Office is actually next to the River in Lynn
@@JOHNFILOWIAT Enough said.
So sad...
Movement of water is paramount (unplug it).
That's why streets flood too - FYI
Same thing happened here in the United States especially in the southeast. There used to be brown trout and even carp in the creek that flows through my property but after they built 300 or more cookie cutter “Home?‘s“ a.k.a. bank owned equity, all the fertilizer and chemicals and runoff have destroyed it completely not to mention causing flooding that has not been seen before since all those acres of land were replaced by blacktop and roofs
Sorry to hear that Matthew, everywhere game fish are under pressure. The salmon farming industry has almost destroyed wild Atlantic salmon in Scotland.
Such. a sad thing .
Done the same to the river mouse in scotland just a drainage ditch now
You can see my old house at the start of this x
It is outrageous that people are allowed to dump sewage into our rivers and streams.
This is tragic.
The river Cole needs monitoring how do I do that please 🙏 help 😢
Very nicely filmed and narrated but you should know that chalk is NOT porous. Water flow through it by means of fractures and faults. the aquifers are usually the underlying sandstones.
Thanks for this. My understanding is less than complete so I’ll allow my curiosity a bit more time on this! It would partly explain the water company’s claim that they’re not affecting the chalk aquifer, they’re taking their water from the sandstones below it.