Farmers win three-year battle to dredge River Winster

A group of 49 farmers has won a long battle to clear the River Winster, after the Cumbrian town of Grange-over-Sands suffered 10 years of “avoidable” flooding.

Several local farming businesses have been affected, with some even taking the drastic step of selling their cattle as a result.

Dairy farmer David Lawrence said he had meetings with the Environment Agency (EA), Marine Management Organisation and Natural England over many years to try to resolve the problems, but he “wasn’t being listened to”.

See also: Somerset farmer fears flooding repeat as EA cuts support

“We wanted to invest,” he added. “We got a grant to put robots in four years ago. We shelved that because we didn’t think we’d be farming in five years. It was getting that bad.”

In July 2023, Cumbrian farming stalwart John Geldard formed the Lynster Farmer Group (LFG) to work in collaboration with other organisations in a bid to get the river cleared.

The three-week project was finally completed on 19 September this year, but it took the LFG three years to reach the start line, with authorities at every turn obstructing the work or claiming it could not be done.

Consequently, the cost of the project skyrocketed, with Mr Geldard branding the expense “unacceptable and impossible”.

In total, it cost just over £300,000 to complete the straightforward works that included clearing mud deposits and building a brushwood and wool groyne.

A wall protecting the flow of the river from the sea gate into Morecambe Bay that was removed in 1998, causing the problems, was also reinstated.

Financial barriers

The licence to complete the project alone cost £120,000. It was granted by the EA after it informed the LFG that it could not carry out the work itself due to financial constraints.

Mr Geldard said: “This demonstrates the clear reason why farmers haven’t been able to challenge the authorities. There’s no way they could do it.

“There was a gentleman in the South who went to jail for cleaning out a river. I thought I was going to be fast-tracked to jail, but I’m still here.

“And that is only because of the expertise we’ve had on board to do things absolutely properly, but it cost us an arm and a leg.”

Now, Mr Geldard hopes the LFG can be used as a model to help other farmers in similar situations across the country.