East Mascalls Fish Pass

With support from the Adur & Ouse Partnership and the Catchment Partnership Action Fund, OART sought to find a cost effective method of installing a pass at the East Mascalls Road Bridge, which would avoid blocking the river for long periods of time.

The solution was to pre-fabricate the pass, rather than build it on site within the channel, allowing us to lift it into place and fit it in one day, and removing the need to block off  the river – a concern for both the Environment Agency and local residents.  We were fortunate to be recommended Martin Childs Ltd to help with the construction and installation and following a number of site visits we instructed a company in Holland (the closest we could find who could do this) to build the pass out of HDPE plastic, reducing the cost and as the material has no commercial recyclable value, ensuring it wouldn’t disappear from the river.

This project opens up a further 1.4km of river to fish passage and we  are excited to get the results of the next upstream fish survey to show what improvements this new pass has made.