MRT is reviewing the latest government regulations and guidance on COVID-19 with a view to allowing our volunteer River Guardians to resume water quality and/or kick sampling activities where it is safe to do so from Monday 8 June and where they wish to do so. Additional health and safety measures are now required to meet the Government’s “COVID-19 Secure” requirements for working outdoors and these need to be briefed to each River Guardian before they can resume their volunteering work. We will update you later this week with our plans. Many thanks again for all the help and support we receive from our volunteers - and thank you for your understanding in these challenging times for everyone.
Best wishes, Paul and John (MRT Directors)

The Covid 19 outbreak and the important measures introduced by the Government are hitting hard across a range of UK businesses and firms. The Mersey Rivers Trust (MRT) has worked hard to deliver our projects and initiatives and for the last 10 days all staff have been working from home. We are committed to continuing our excellent progress and improvements to the rivers in the Mersey Catchment, however following a review of our activities and workload we have reluctantly decided to “Furlough” a number of MRT staff under the terms of the Government’s “Job Retention Scheme”. The Trust will maintain a small team of staff to carry out desk based engagement with our partners and funders in addition to managing the Trust.

The above measures will help to
• Protect the health and wellbeing of our staff and the public by not travelling and working outdoors
• Ensure a strong future for the Trust by retaining all of our staff and allowing us to continue our important work as soon as possible
• Provide the best service to our partners, funders and volunteers during this difficult time.

If you need to contact the Trust please do so via our This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. email address and not via your normal MRT contact.

We suspended all of our volunteer activities several weeks ago to protect the health and wellbeing of volunteers. We will keep in touch with our volunteers and arrange new events as soon as this becomes possible.

We will continue our online communications and continue with online hosting of the Lower Mersey, Upper Mersey and Alt Crossens CaBa partnerships, plus online engagement with the River Bollin BEACON group. We will continue to engage with our partners online as far as possible.

Your help and understanding would be appreciated under these exceptional circumstances which we hope will end as soon as possible.

Previous Next

On 3rd March, an engagement event for farmers in the seven priority catchments as part of the Upper Weaver Water Friendly Farming project was held at Lord Combermere pub, Audlem and co-hosted by Severn Rivers Trust and Mersey Rivers Trust.  

United Utilities, Mersey Rivers Trust and Severn Rivers Trust are working in partnership to help protect and improve water quality in the Upper Weaver catchments in Cheshire.  This project is working with farms in the Ash Brook, Checkley Brook, Valley Brook (source to Englesea Brook), Englesea Brook, Birchall Brook, Bickley Brook and Duckow catchments.

There was a presentation given by both Mersey Rivers Trust and Severn Rivers Trust Farm Advisors to those present, and time during the presentation and at the end of the talk to ask questions and discuss grant options that could be implemented on each farm.  There were 19 farmers that attended, and all enjoyed the opportunity to find out more about the grant and also have 1-2-1 time to discuss thier individual farm needs with an advisor.  Some farmers also booked a farm walkover visit on the evening.  The Pie and Pint was also delicious, and thanks to the Lord Combermere for thier hospitality.

For more information on how you could get involved in this grant scheme please visit out webpage here, or to book a visit today please contact us here.