East Suffolk Council
East Suffolk Council backs ambitions to regenerate Deben River
East Suffolk Council is supporting the efforts of The Deben Climate Centre to deliver “a radical and ambitious plan to regenerate the Deben River for people and nature”.
The Centre is an expanding coalition of residents, academics, local community groups, charities and organisations which plans to regenerate the River Deben Catchment through widespread community action.
Cllr Sally Noble, East Suffolk Council’s Cabinet Member for the Environment believes that the Centre’s aims are critically important and says that East Suffolk Council will do whatever it can to help them achieve their ambitions. She said:
“There is no time to lose, which is why we are committed to supporting the Deben Climate Centre who are already working towards restoring and protecting our unique river catchment areas of the Deben and others across the district. As a council, we want to do all we can to improve water quality and biodiversity across our district and provide support where we can for this vital project.
“This includes our expertise in both ecological and environmental issues, as well as routes to funding which can provide the much-needed resources a scheme of this nature desperately needs.
“We also hope that this can become a learning landscape for a new relationship between people and nature, as a template to be rolled out throughout the entire East Suffolk district.”
The Centre’s programs to date have focused on testing water quality on the Deben, and several lecture series highlighting the local effects of Climate Change, the global food security crisis, and the startling loss of species and habitats.
Deben Climate founders Professor Peter Hobson and Eamonn O’Nolan said:
“Ours is a radical and ambitious plan to regenerate the Deben River for people and nature and it is built on the collective will of a partnership between local people, community environment groups and other key stakeholders such as farmers and land-owners.
“We are thrilled to work with East Suffolk Council, and we recognise that successful projects like this require the support and expertise of skilled Local Government officers and members. This partnership marks an important step forward in equipping our local communities to respond to Climate Change.
“East Suffolk residents have suffered badly in recent years from Climate-related flooding. This plan contains radical initiatives which will help to revive the river’s capacity to deal with sudden rainfall events and provide a model for sustainable land management.”