Salix have developed a Coir Roll which is fully biodegradable, providing effective erosion control without the use of plastic nets.
habitat creation
AquaRockBag launch
Salix’s AquaRockBag is an ecologically sensitive method of erosion control. Working with natural processes to provide erosion control & habitat biodiversity
Intertidal Planting Solution on River Thames
Creating a reed bed on an intertidal part of the Thames river is challenging – but Salix achieved a fantastic result as a consequence of their unique design approach.
Flooding and erosion prevention in Sheffield
When a flashy stream was unearthed in Sheffield Salix were brought in as specialist experts in erosion management by the Wild Trout Trust. The Porter Brook was subject to regular flooding, if it rained on the Peaks then the city centre would flood.
Flashy Floods in Car Park Solved
Rock Rolls and pre-planted Coir Rolls & Pallets were used to prevent erosion whilst creating a lovely habitat in Sheffield City centre where a culverted stream had been flash flooding
Woodberry Wetlands is National Lottery Finalist
Urban wetland is finalist for best Lottery funded project
Over the last few years Salix have had the pleasure of constructing a number of London Wildlife Trust projects.
Products Used in Habitat Creation Project With Yorkshire Wildlife Trust
Creating habitats in a flood protection project with Yorkshire Wildlife Trust & Environment Agency at Snaith Ponds, using our Coir Pallets & native plants
A Down To Earth Green Roof Solution
Creating a green roof on a 43° pitch using our HydraCX and native wildflower seed
Erosion Control at SuDS project
Rock Rolls and Rock Mattresses are both easy to put into place, prevent erosion and can withstand high flows whilst allowing for the natural establishment of plants.
The Avenue, Erosion Control & Habitat Creation Within SuDS on Old Contaminated Land
Salix have been appointed as specialist contractors to deal with the erosion control and habitat creation within a SuDS for a mix of housing and business parks at The Avenue
River Washburn Restoration
Salix were approached as river restoration experts and because of the innovative Menzi Muck Spider machine which is capable of climbing in and out of a river causing little disturbance.
Coir Rolls Aid Biodiversity Boom
Our Coir Rolls are superb at erosion control and they are also brilliant for wildlife. Wildlife such as Water Voles benefit enormously from the immediate cover that the mature plants provide and also from the carefully thought out planting.
Floating Island Benefits Wildlife on Serpentine
Cwmparc River Restoration
Salix worked with Natural Resources Wales at Cwmparc in the Rhondda Valley to renaturalise the water courses in order to reduce flood risk and increase biodiversity.
River Dulais, Rhosmaen Llandeilo
Salix’s River Dulais project demonstrating the use of large woody debris (LWD) is now ten years old and has been is included in the manual of River Restoration Techniques.
Water works at Walthamstow Wetlands
The latest stage of the transformation of Walthamstow Wetlands into the largest wetland nature reserve in London will see the creation of new reedbeds to help preserve water quality and improve wildlife habitats.
Bridging the Ecological and Engineering Gap
Bridging the ecological and engineering gap with our effective bio-engineering solutions
Woodberry Wetlands
Desilting a large reservoir in the heart of London and creating a new wetland habitat. Dredging silts enabled us to create 13,000 square metres of new reed bed
The Spider on the River Washburn
Innovative spider machine helps restore wildlife habitats on the River Washburn. Yorkshire Water’s trial works to improve the quality of the river environment downstream of Swinsty reservoir is now well underway.
Rock Rolls – Effective Erosion Control
Rock Rolls offer flexibility and the fact they arrive on site pre-filled with stone greatly reduces installation time and therefore cost, compared to in-situ filled gabions. Rock rolls and mattresses can also be installed during live flow situations, which is not possible with standard gabions.
Floating Islands
Rock Mattresses
Rock Rolls
Bionet C125BN
Coir Pallets
Slowing the flow at Cwmparc
With funding from the Welsh Government’s Nature Fund, we supported Rhondda Cynon Taf Council in taking steps to naturalise one of the concrete channels which brings water down from the mountains at Cwmparc,
Coir Rolls
Woodberry in the Guardian
Wildlife gardening on a colossal scale, The Guardian admires our Woodberry Wetlands work. Desilting large areas of the old reservoirs to create new reedbeds.
Restoring East Tullos Burn
East Tullos Burn project transformed a waterway from a straight, hard-engineered channel, into a natural stream, functional floodplain and wetland habitat.
Naturalising Norfolk’s Chalk Rivers
Salix has helped the Norfolk Rivers Trust to improve wildlife habitats on the chalk River Babingley, Hillington Estate near Flitcham, and River Nar at Pentney, near Kings Lynn.
Wetland Creation for New Wildlife Reserve
We have started pump dredging/desilting at Woodberry Wetlands in East London, creating new reed beds and islands. Our desilting work uses an amphibious machine…
Salix helps naturalise the chalk River Nar
Working with the Norfolk Rivers Trust and cbec, Salix has just completed a project to help to improve wildlife habitats on a section of the chalk River Nar in west Norfolk.
Improving wildlife habitats on the Royal chalk River Babingley
With the help of Salix, the Norfolk Rivers Trust is improving fish and other river wildlife habitats on the River Babingley near Flitcham, one of only two hundred chalk rivers left in the world.
Creating a new nature reserve in East London
Salix is helping the London Wildlife Trust to create a new nature reserve on the site of Thames Water’s East Reservoir in Stoke Newington.
Salix to showcase innovative phosphorus removal techniques
Phosphorus is one of the most common parameters causing a watercourse to fail water quality standards set out under the Water Framework Directive.
Native pond plants supplied for new pond
Salix has helped The Norfolk Hospice create a new pond at its new residential facility in Hillington.
As well as providing hundreds of native pond plants,
Lake Desilting & Environment Improved at Ifield Mill Pond
Lake Desilting & Biodiversity Improvements at Midhurst’s South Pond
The South Downs National Park Authority has commissioned Salix to help create a wildlife haven on the South Pond, at the edge of Midhurst town centre in West Sussex. The large 800-year old pond, which has a 270-metre perimeter and two small islands, had been suffering from pollution and heavy siltation.
New wetland habitats at East Tullos Burn
Salix has worked with Aberdeen City Council, cbec and Walking-the-Talk to restore the East Tullos Burn in St Fittick’s Park, Torry,
Salix is now Europe’s largest producer of coir fibre rolls
Working directly with ethical, organic and sustainable suppliers in Sri Lanka, each year Salix imports hundreds of tonnes of compressed coir fibres and turns them into Coir Rolls and Pallets at its Thetford nursery in Norfolk.
Olympic Park Wetlands
Salix were involved in making the Olympic Park a reality, when we were awarded the prestigious Tier 2 Contract in 2009 to grow all the wetland and wet wildflower plants…
M25 Road Widening
Salix were tasked with greening up a 45 degree slope consisting of 6F2 fill. The initial design was a covering of 150mm of topsoil over an area of about 8,000m2 using a geocell product attached to the surface of the slope to contain the soil and prevent it from slipping.
Coir Pallets
Salix produce a wide range of pre-established coir pallets planted with high quality native plant species. Coir pallets are composed from coir fibre which is a sustainable waste product from the husk of the coconut shell.
Coir Rolls
Coir Rolls are an organic living revetment that provide erosion control and rapid vegetation establishment. Salix have developed a range of specific species mixes for use in all types of water bodies.
Bionet C125BN
Bionet biodegradable erosion control blankets are designed to provide immediate erosion protection and vegetation establishment assistance, then degrade after the root and stem systems of the vegetation are mature enough to permanently stabilise the underlying soil.
Sandwich Flood Alleviation Scheme
Royal Parks, Serpentine Lake
As part of a programme of wildlife habitat improvements in the Royal Parks, Salix have been awarded a contract to create large floating wetland islands on the Serpentine Lake in London’s Hyde Park.
Medmerry Realignment Scheme
Medmerry is one of the stretches of coastline most at risk of flooding in southern England. The overall scheme involves building major new sea defences inland and allowing a new intertidal area to form between Selsey and Bracklesham in West Sussex.
BioHaven Innovation
Wetlands are an incredibly valuable environment, both to nature and wider society; BioHaven can offer all of the ecosystem services of a healthy functioning wetland but can be placed in an area where it would be impossible to put a constructed or conventional wetland.
10th Anniversary River Dulais Project
Tenth Anniversary of Salix’s Project on The River Dulais, Rhosmaen, Llandeilo.
Salix’s River Dulais project demonstrating the use of large woody debris (LWD) is now ten years old and we are delighted to announce that this ground breaking project has been included in the River Restoration Centre (RRC) Manual of Techniques.
Rock’n’Roll!
Rock Rolls are a robust, flexible and permanent revetment for use around reservoirs, shorelines, lake edges,
Under The Boardwalk
Richmond Royal Parks is a walkover for Salix and Sir David Attenborough’s Volunteers.
In our last newsletter and in the piece On Her Majesty’s Service we featured the start of our works at Richmond Royal Parks,
Better Banks!
The Environment Agency are responsible for the river bank stability at Railway Lane, Lewes and recognising the integrity of the existing blockwork facing was deteriorating began to look into solutions to this challenge.
Olympic Odyssey for Salix
We are delighted to finally unveil our role in making the Olympic Park a reality, from our initial involvement way back in 2008,
Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow!
The current harsh winter conditions have frozen our 20 acre constructed wetbeds at our own nursery in Norfolk.
On Her Majesty’s Service…
Work has commenced at one of our most prestigious locations to date The Royal Parks.
We have been appointed as a result of being able to demonstrate our experience in working in environmentally sensitive areas whilst employing our own specialist staff and machinery to minimise the impact of our works.
Gloucester Business Park
A new warehouse complex required a large balancing pond to take surface runoff water. The pond had steep sides which required some form of ground stabilisation.
Cwmbran Boating Lake
The boating lake was a popular local attraction and fishing lake. The lake edges were in bad repair with little or no marginal vegetation. Floating islands were also required to add further habitat for fish and wildfowl.
Foss Dyke Bank Stabilisation
A rise in pleasure boating on the Foss resulted in severe boat wash. Monitoring revealed that the rate of bank erosion was up to 2.5 metres in a year over a 2km stretch.
Papworth Reedbeds
After a competitive bid process, Salix designed and built a tertiary treatment reedbed for Anglian Water at their Papworth STW. Salix partnered with Pete Worrall of Penny Anderson Associates and a unique design approach was developed.
Habitat Creation Scores In Independent Report
Salix successfully tendered for a project to form a backwater and island in a field adjacent to the Grand Union Canal.
Alix in Wonderland
Over 560m of perched channel in Soham, Cambs was leaking and needed repair. The reach was populated by water vole so a sensitive approach was required in order to create a new habitat as soon as possible.
Medmerry
Client – Van Oord working for the Environment Agency.
Salix are currently working on the Medmerry managed realignment scheme,
Salwarpe Reedbed
As part of a new large reedbed creation project Salix contract grew and planted out 125,000 reed plants grown from local provenance seed stock. Seed was hand collected and processed by Salix specialists from an adjacent existing reedbed.
Twycross Zoo Wetlands
As Principle contractor, Salix constructed a 3 hectare wetland system to provide waste water treatment and habitat creation. 18 integrated ponds, wet grassland, reedbeds and ditches were constructed for Twycross Zoo.
Pembroke Commons
1 km of new and existing channel was enhanced using bioengineering techniques as part of a flood protection project in the centre of historic Pembroke in West Wales.
River Thaw Enhancement
Salix were asked by Environment Agency Wales to advise on methods to restore a 100 metre reach of the River Thaw which had been subject to physical degradation by overgrazing and cattle poaching.
River Roding Bank Protection
Salix advised engineers Halcrow on bioengineering methods to stabilise a regraded slope as part of an inter-tidal river enhancement project. The existing vertical retaining wall provided no habitat value.
River Roding Enhancement
The River Roding is an inter-tidal river and these works were undertaken 100m upstream of the Barking Barrier, Greater London. The works were part of an Environment Agency environmental enhancement project with both flood defence and nature conservation in mind.
Pre-filled Rock Roll
Rock Rolls are a robust and permanent revetment for use around reservoirs, shorelines, lake edges, streams and river banks. They are cost-effective revetments that are suitable alternatives to rock rip rap and gabions in many scour applications.
Pre-filled Rock Mattresses
Rock Mattresses are a robust and permanent revetment for use around reservoirs, shorelines, lake edges, streams and river banks. They are cost-effective revetments that are suitable alternatives to rock rip rap and gabions…
Beacon Park
Salix were employed by main contractor Casey to undertake the restoration work to Beacon Pool for Lichfield Council on this Heritage lottery funded project.
Kelham Island Goit
Salix were contracted by Mansell construction to dredge the contaminated Goit forming Kelham Island and working closely with ecologists ECUS to create marginal habitat.
Water Vole Habitat Works
Salix successfully tendered for a pilot project to improve marginal vegetation along the River Wandle. The project formed part of a wider scheme to reintroduce water vole to the river.
Upper Lake, Perton
A two hectare area of open water had extensive embankment erosion due to massive populations of Canada Geese which created public health & safety issues.
Grand Union Canal
The project aim was to restore a wetland area on the banks of the Grand Union Canal for the benefit of wildlife and the fishery. The scheme design ensured that no material was taken off site and that particular focus was on creating suitable habitat for Water Voles and amphibian species such as Newts.
Soham Lode Re-visited
An important water vole site at Soham Lode required emergency re-lining of the perched section of the reach (approximately 600m) Following the emergency works, Salix were awarded a Design & Build contract on a competitive bid process…
Water Vole Habitat Mitigation
Medmerry is one of the stretches of coastline most at risk of flooding in southern England. The overall scheme involves building major new sea defences inland and allowing a new intertidal area to form…
Worden Park Leyland
Following works within Worden Park to remove a culverted section of Cricket Field Brook that was the cause of flooding to neighbouring residential properties, a long term solution was required…
Floating Islands
Floating Islands provide valuable ecological habitat, fish refuge cover and water purification within open water environments. Salix supply and install floating islands and can incorporate a diverse range of flowering species to increase the habitat and aesthetic value of the project.
Railway Lane, Lewes
The integrity of the existing blockwork facing was deteriorating as a result of the tidal inundation and draw-down cycles together with areas of groundwater seepages emanating from the slope profile.