Wildlife & Water Quality PCAP Environment meeting, 23 Oct 2025
- Jeremy Wyatt
- 7 days ago
- 2 min read
On Oct 23rd, Great Green Bedwyn led a well-attended meeting on behalf of Pewsey Community Area Partnership (PCAP) to understand the link between our wildlife hotspots and water quality in the Pewsey Vale and to share how local communities can plan for and prevent flooding.
Wildlife and water quality
Maps from the Wiltshire & Swindon Biological Records Centre (WSBRC), use nearly 4 million records to show the distribution of rare species across Wiltshire and how this has changed over recent decades. Wiltshire’s unique chalk streams were illustrated by photos from Action for the River Kennet (ARK). The maps and monitoring (carried out by Bedwyn WI) show that water quality in Pewsey Vale has decreased significantly in the last decade, while flooding has increased. This is caused by:
• Runoff from fields & roads (phosphates, nitrates, tyre wear, oil…)
• Storms causing flash floods
• Sewage outflows - from lack of investment in water infrastructure and new houses
• Old houses - downpipes often connected to sewers
• Drought and water abstraction which reduce ground water for our chalk streams.
We humans also enjoy freshwater leisure (eg wild water swimming) but poor water quality increases the risk of disease including gastroenteritis and Weil’s disease. Pollution also endangers many iconic species including kestrels (which feed on water voles), kingfishers (eat freshwater fish which feed on river flies) and green
winged orchids (which need marshy land).
• Record species by using the iRecord app.
– which sends the findings to WSBRC
• Harvest and slow up rainwater run off by collecting it in water butts, rain planters and rain gardens
• Replace concrete in our drives and patios with gravel which slows up runoff
• Set up local groups & quick response teams to keep ditches and drains clear of silt and debris
Flood planning and flooding management
Paul Cobbing (Pewsey): Having developed flood plans for Pewsey, Paul said that more information needs to be collected about floods as the basis for a flood plan - who was affected, where it came from and how bad it was (with photos if possible). Resources to help flood planning are at https://flood-map-for-
planning.service.gov.uk/. More information is on the GGB website under flooding.
Jonty Hitchman (Great Bedwyn) explained that the Bedwyn Flood Group was set up in 2012 and led to the ‘Great wall of Bedwyn’. It has published a village flooding and resilience plan and has a WhatsApp group to communicate during storms and heavy rain events, sharing alerts and updates on local conditions and
worked with local landowners to reduce local flooding over the last few years.
Tony Mullikan (North Newton) described Flood Busters, a group of people of all ages who respond to WhatsApp messages asking for help around their village. The group formed to provide flood support after they realised that neither Wessex/Thames Water nor Wiltshire Council could realistically help quickly. They
now cover flooding and other activities such as litter picking and painting bridge railings. Their motto is “Don’t wait, do it, have fun !”
Date for the diary: Great Green Bedwyn & Southern Streams talk 29 January
Please see the resources below for the slides from each of the talks from the event.
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