The Northern Wey Trust is urging people to lend a hand to help protect the river.

Following a meeting at Alton Community Centre to discuss the future of the River Wey, Northern Wey Trust chairman Dr June Chatfield explained that “rivers are important to all our lives” as she outlined the work the trust does.

“The northern Wey determined settlement sites for Alton (on the spring source), the villages of Holybourne, Froyle, Bentley and Tilford, and the town of Farnham,” she said.

“In the past, and providing history and heritage interest today, the river served to power water mills for corn and paper and fulling mills to treat woven cloth. It has provided a water supply and its deeper groundwater aquifer is under heavy pressure from today’s population, as is the river for taking away treated (and often untreated) sewage effluent.

“The Wey is a chalk stream in its headwaters with a rich natural history and fly fisheries and accessed by numerous public footpaths for recreation and therapeutic enjoyment of the river environment. It has served us in the past and we need to be aware of its role in the future.”

The Northern Wey Trust was formed in 1990 and its sister organisation on the southern branch of the Wey (Haslemere to Tilford) – The River Wey Trust – some years before.

Both groups have recorded conditions on the river for more than 20 years but, Dr Chatfield added, “we need new people to keep going”.

“At the present time most British rivers fail to achieve good ecological status in the European Water Framework Directive and that includes the Wey,” she said.

“The Government has set up river catchment partnerships to address the problem and the Wey Valley Catchment Partnership is hosted by the Surrey Wildlife Trust. With reduced resources in the Government agencies, the partnerships are looking to local groups to run and monitor projects that will improve the situation starting with the more feasible headwaters in raising the category from ‘fair’ to ‘good’.

“Faced with declining numbers of members and an ageing membership, we are urgently seeking new officers and those prepared to do practical work on the river. It is very interesting work and we gain much expertise from working with the Environment Agency, water companies, local authorities and others representing river interest groups.”

Dr Chatfield said that while the Northern Wey Trust was currently working with Glen Skelton, of the Surrey Wildlife Trust, and the Wey Valley Catchment Partnership, on river surveying and projects in the local area, “groups like the Northern Wey Trust, which have a permanence beyond the dates of short-term funded projects, are urgently needed.”

She added: “It would be unthinkable if the Northern Wey Trust were to close at the point when it is needed to take the work of the Wey Valley catchment, on meeting the water framework directive, forward. But if we fail to get more volunteers, the Northern Wey Trust will close.”

Anyone interested in volunteering should call Dr Chatfield on 01420 82214 or e-mail acting secretary Gill Glover at [email protected].

For more details about the trust, visit northernweytrust.btck.co.uk.