The Lower Otter Restoration Project – nearing completion after more than a decade of engagement
It is always a special moment when a project you have been working on starts to bear fruit and you can see the results of all your efforts.
Our involvement with the Lower Otter Restoration Project started more than 10 years ago when client Clinton Devon Estates began to look into the future management of the land in its care where the River Otter meets the sea at Budleigh.
Like most British estuaries, it has been dramatically altered by human activity over many centuries. The greatest change being when embankments were built to hold back the sea and create new farmland two centuries ago.
But those embankments were starting to fail, causing regular flooding at high tides. Add in rising sea levels and other impacts of climate change and the consequences of that failure for nature, and human inhabitants, change was inevitable. Clinton Devon Estates acted quickly and innovatively and began working in partnership with the Environment Agency to restore 55 hectares of intertidal habitat.
And so the Lower Otter Restoration Project was born.
We knew the communications and engagement would need to be carefully managed so that stakeholders could be kept informed and, where relevant, involved in the project as it moved through the many stages towards completion.
KOR set up a website as a depository for all relevant information and documentation. Stakeholder group notes and minutes were added, along with regular project updates. Equally importantly, we sent out newsletters to an ever-increasing database of people who signed up via the project website.
We needed to make sure the media understood the proposals, and regularly kept in touch with local reporters.
By the end of 2020, the planning application was ready. The Environmental Statement alone stretched to hundreds of pages, and so we prepared a briefing note for the members of the planning committee.
Early in 2021, members of East Devon District Council’s planning committee granted unanimous consent for the proposals. Planning Committee Chair Cllr Eileen Wragg said: “I would like to reassure the residents that Clinton Devon Estates have a long-established reputation as being very good stewards of the land in their ownership. They have managed their lands very well and they are very forward thinking in their approach…”
Work started not long after, mindful of the breeding seasons of the existing wildlife.
Our in-house photographer and drone pilot has returned to the site every month for the past two years to capture a bird’s-eye view of the landscape changes via drone. A new road bridge is complete, as are new pathways and viewing points. Budleigh Salterton Cricket Club has a new home, and a new footbridge is emerging.
July 2021
May 2023
It has been fascinating to see this work unfold, and to see the paper plans we discussed with Clinton Devon Estates and the Environment Agency, turn into an emerging new landscape where wildlife is thriving.
By the end of this year, the old embankments will be deliberately breached. Nature will be able to take its own course once more.
We are proud to have played our part in this hugely successful project, and to have helped Clinton Devon Estates effectively communicate with decision-makers, neighbours and stakeholders the benefits LORP will have on people, the planet and nature.
You can read more about the project, including tips on stakeholder engagement here.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-pacco-project-s-guide-to-successful-climate-adaptation