Group aims to clear river of pennywort in five years

A volunteer group hopes an invasive plant species could be cleared from a large section of the River Soar in Leicestershire in the next five years.

Project River Soar is one of many groups that has supported the Canal and River Trust by carrying out clearances of floating pennywort since July.

The trust said floating pennywort, which arrived in the UK in the 1980s, can grow up to 20cm (8in) a day and was able to double its weight in as little as three days.

Amy Cipriano, organiser of Project River Soar, said the group had created the "dream" goal of clearing 30 miles of the river with the help of experts who successfully removed pennywort from a section of the River Stour in Essex.

"They had a much smaller stretch of river than we did, and it took them about 18 months to get [rid of it] on their 11 miles," Cipriano said.

"The idea this season has been to apply that methodology to the River Soar and its tributaries.

"We've calculated that it will take us about five years to march down the river from Aylestone to the River Trent."

Cipriano said the clean-up methods used by the group in Essex were successfully replicated in the River Soar.

"We picked a mile strip last year at the end of last season. We forensically picked it so every fragment of pennywort was removed," she said.

"We removed it from the silt and continued to go back weekly.

"I'm really pleased to say that in the whole of this season there has been less than a bucketful of pennywort in that mile strip, above Aylestone Mill Meadows."

However, the 44-year-old nurse added that no removal of pennywort would be perfect.

"It's not eradication, it's riddance, because I suspect we'll still be having little hotspots.

The Canal and River Trust said its contractors had removed 1,660 tonnes of the weed from the River Soar since July.

"Floating pennywort continues to be a real challenge on the River Soar, and this year's hot temperatures and low river flows have provided ideal growing conditions for the problem plant," a spokesperson said.

"We love the enthusiasm of the volunteers involved and their goal to eradicate the weed from the river in the next five years.

"It is a formidable foe, with voracious growth and the ability to spread from other watercourses, but the more people that get involved the better chance there is to make that dream a reality."

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