AN ENVIRONMENTAL group, set up to improve a main river through Clevedon, has been awarded a cash boost. The Land Yeo Friends has been presented with a Wessex Water Watermark Award of £450 to help with a project to restore part of the Land Yeo River. The g

AN ENVIRONMENTAL group, set up to improve a main river through Clevedon, has been awarded a cash boost.The Land Yeo Friends has been presented with a Wessex Water Watermark Award of £450 to help with a project to restore part of the Land Yeo River.The group was set up in 2003 to improve the Land Yeo so it can be enjoyed by the whole community.Over the years the river has been hampered by development and become a dumping ground for rubbish.The money will be used to carry out work on a 150 metre stretch of water between Meadow Road and the medical centre, called Somer Meadow.The work will include stabilising the riverbank where it has suffered erosion and become unstable.Jackie Tait, who applied for the grant on behalf of the Land Yeo Friends, said: "We intend to undertake bank stabilisation and reinforcement, using natural materials in a variety of established river restoration techniques."This will create a more natural river corridor with one bank having limited public access along a reinforced grass pathway through a wildflower meadow."The proposal will be particularly beneficial in providing a range of habitats from which water voles and dragonfly species will benefit."It may even be possible to create conditions favourable for nesting birds, such as sand martins and habitat allowing grass snakes to breed."In the longer term, it may be possible to introduce occasional ponds along the river course and to create the impression of a meandering channel."Where the river has a naturally meandering course, its setting can easily be further enhanced by sensitively placed landscape planting."Since the group launched in 2003 it has already cleared the river of several tonnes of unsightly debris.