Please be aware that there is a sunken fibreglass vessel on the Old River Nene east of March Town, which, if passable, will only be so if care is taken.

This matter will not probably be attended to until the New Year as our call out staff and employees have been out working 24/7 since the 23^rd December dealing with excess flood waters and are now concentrating on essential remedial activities and checks as water levels are brought back down to normal. They also need a break once all emergency and essential tasks are completed.

Our reasoning for deeming this a low priority is that the vessel is currently not causing a flood risk, it is already sunken and appears abandoned and the navigation length is within a Tier 4 area hence we would not expect vessels to be being, used other that for absolutely essential journeys. If you need to contact the MLC urgently please dial the main office number and choose the emergency option.

Following the successful completion of similar work undertaken in the 2019 season to watercourses under the control of the EA in the Swavesey area, Swavesey IDB in conjunction with the Middle Level Commissioners were tasked with providing a similar fully costed and re-chargeable service to the EA again for the 2020 season under a PSCA contract.

This season’s watercourse maintenance works consisted of several elements including flail mowing of watercourse banks and adjacent berms, bush trimming,  herbicide application to control emergent aquatic vegetation, and machine and hand cleansing with a weed bucket/ hand tools to remove excessive vegetation from the watercourses concerned. Vermin monitoring and control has also been included in this year’s works programme.