Savick Brook is a

watercourse A stream is a continuous body of surface water flowing within the bed and banks of a channel. Depending on its location or certain characteristics, a stream may be referred to by a variety of local or regional names. Long large streams are ...

Lancashire Lancashire ( , ; abbreviated Lancs) is the name of a historic county, ceremonial county, and non-metropolitan county in North West England. The boundaries of these three areas differ significantly. The non-metropolitan county of Lancashi ...

, England, which runs from the outskirts of

Longridge Longridge is a market town and civil parish in the borough of Ribble Valley in Lancashire, England. It is situated north-east of the city of Preston, at the western end of Longridge Fell, a long ridge above the River Ribble. Its nearest neigh ...

westward north of Preston to the

River Ribble The River Ribble runs through North Yorkshire and Lancashire in Northern England. It starts close to the Ribblehead Viaduct in North Yorkshire, and is one of the few that start in the Yorkshire Dales and flow westwards towards the Irish Sea (t ...

Overview

Savick Brook - 'The Ribble Link' - geograph

The brook is a

tributary A tributary, or affluent, is a stream or river that flows into a larger stream or main stem (or parent) river or a lake. A tributary does not flow directly into a sea or ocean. Tributaries and the main stem river drain the surrounding drainage ...

of the lower Ribble, with its source on the outskirts of Longridge (around ), approximately to the northeast of Preston. It flows westward though the suburb of Fulwood towards and to the south of the village of

Lea Lea or LEA may refer to: Places Australia * Lea River, Tasmania, Australia * Lake Lea, Tasmania, from which the Lea River flows * RAAF Base Learmonth, IATA airport code "LEA" England * Lea, Cheshire, a civil parish * Lea, Derbyshire, a set ...

, where it makes a sharp turn to the south. It then continues on a southerly course and enters the Ribble from the north bank (at ) approximately west of the tidal basin that marks the entrance to

Preston Dock Preston Dock (also known as Preston Docklands) was a former maritime dock located on the northern bank of the River Ribble approximately west of Preston's town centre in Lancashire, England. It is the location of the Albert Edward Basin whic ...

Geology

Most of the underlying geology for the brook's water basin is Triassic rock consisting of red Sherwood sandstone, with a faulted boundary with the carboniferous rocks to the east of Preston. The upper part of Savick Brook around Longridge lies in a carboniferous area of Millstone Grit. Glacial drift deposits, principally till (boulder clay) also cover much of the area.

Tributaries

A number of smaller waterways flow into the brook, including: * Deepdale Brook * Eaves Brook * Sandy Brook * Sharoe Brook

Ribble Link

In December 2000 construction began to turn a section of the brook west of Cottom Mill bridge into a navigation canal as part of the Ribble Link, a scheme to connect the previously isolated

Lancaster Canal The Lancaster Canal is a canal in North West England, originally planned to run from Westhoughton in Lancashire to Kendal in south Cumbria ( historically in Westmorland). The section around the crossing of the River Ribble was never complete ...

to the

. Opened in July 2002, the Link has a series of nine

locks Lock(s) may refer to: Common meanings *Lock and key, a mechanical device used to secure items of importance *Lock (water navigation), a device for boats to transit between different levels of water, as in a canal Arts and entertainment * ''Lock ...

to allow small craft and

narrowboats A narrowboat is a particular type of canal boat, built to fit the narrow locks of the United Kingdom. The UK's canal system provided a nationwide transport network during the Industrial Revolution, but with the advent of the railways, commerc ...

up to in length and in width to transit between the two waterways.

Water Level and Quality

There are a number of monitoring stations along the brook which measures its water level and at which samples are taken to determine water quality:

Level

At the Savick Brook Monitoring Station near Highgate Wood, the brook has had an average depth of between and for 90% of the time since monitoring began. In the twelve months to 19 October 2020, the water level has been between and for at least 151 days.

Quality

A survey by the Environmental Agency in May 2001 determined that the waters of the brook were of a poor quality (River Ecosystem Classification 3 and 4 and General Quality Assessment (GQA) grades D and E)(section 4.2), particularly from sewer discharges and overflows. As a result,

United Utilities United Utilities Group plc (UU), the United Kingdom's largest listed water company, was founded in 1995 as a result of the merger of North West Water and NORWEB. The group manages the regulated water and waste water network in North West Englan ...

were committed to carrying out a series of improvements to the Preston Sewerage System over the subsequent years to improve water quality through fewer discharges from combined sewer overflows. A study by the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (defra) in August 2012 found that the water quality of the brook was: * upper waters - moderate to bad for biological quality, and for chemical quality, good for ammonia and poor for phosphate * lower waters - moderate to bad for biological quality, and for chemical quality, mostly good but occasionally poor for ammonia and moderate to poor for phosphate The study also found a noticeable decrease in water quality in wet periods, further deteriorating in the brook's downstream waters. Furthermore, in the May 2001 to September 2011, there was a significant decline in the numbers of rheophillic fish (i.e. barbel, chub and dace). It was defra's belief that the primary contributing factors were agricultural outflows (mostly dairy farming) and sewerage discharges, with a noted rise in consensual sewerage discharges.

Pollution Incidents

As the brook runs through farmlands and industrial estates there have been historic problems of industrial waste,

phosphate In chemistry, a phosphate is an anion, salt, functional group or ester derived from a phosphoric acid. It most commonly means orthophosphate, a derivative of orthophosphoric acid . The phosphate or orthophosphate ion is derived from phospho ...

and bacteria such as

E-Coli ''Escherichia coli'' (),Wells, J. C. (2000) Longman Pronunciation Dictionary. Harlow ngland Pearson Education Ltd. also known as ''E. coli'' (), is a Gram-negative, facultative anaerobic, rod-shaped, coliform bacterium of the genus ''Escher ...

and

Enterococcus ''Enterococcus'' is a large genus of lactic acid bacteria of the phylum Bacillota. Enterococci are gram-positive cocci that often occur in pairs (diplococci) or short chains, and are difficult to distinguish from streptococci on physical charact ...

entering the waterway. In early May 2013 a large quantity of waste oil was dumped into the brook and another nearby waterway. On 1 November 2019 it was reported to the Environmental Agency that the brook had been contaminated with what appeared to be a large quantity of cow effluent, polluting of the brook and resulting in a noxious smell being reported in Fulwood. Such incidents have been noted as having an adverse effect upon the fish stocks in the brook.

Fishing

Sections of the brook, especially around the confluence with the Ribble, are popular with recreational anglers. A survey by the Environmental Agency in May 2001 determined that the waters of the brook are of a suitable quality for self-sustaining populations of coarse fish, with eleven (11) different species identified: , align="" valign="" style="border:0" width="150", * barbel * chub * dace * eel , align="" valign="" style="border:0" width="200" "white-space:nowrap", * flounder (juvenile) * gudgeon * minnow * perch , align="" valign="" style="border:0" , * roach * stickleback * stoneloach The survey noted that the brook has a surprisingly high number of fish populations despite the pollution risks from the adjoining farmlands and urban areas, and seems particularly well suited to sustaining chub. Furthermore, it stated that flounder, which is a marine species, utilises the brook extensively as a nursery area.

References

{{authority control Rivers of Lancashire Geography of Preston