Red House Gill, River Wear

Fish Legal acts for Chester-le-Street Angling Club in relation to sediment pollution on the River Wear. All precipitation falling on the car parks and roofs of a relatively new industrial and retail park on the outskirts of Durham is funnelled into the Red House Gill, a small tributary of the River Wear at Durham. This surface run-off scours the soft sides of the bank of the gill and transports huge amounts of silt and gravel as it descends to the main River Wear. The result is the deposition of a cobbled bar reaching halfway across the river channel and silty waters extending up to a mile downstream of the confluence. Angling becomes impossible following rainfall and the sediment deposits threaten to clog spawning gravels on the main river.