Soake Pond Project – 2021

Soake Pond has been undergoing major works for some months involving heavy machinery.

These works were supported and funded by the PDAS and Environment Agency and my thanks go to both for their support of this project which was to safeguard the centre Isle causeway from imminent collapse and loss of a fishery as we know it.

The project itself was twofold, one to build a revetment which would widen and reinforce the centre isle causeway and two to de-silt areas and use this to backfill the new revetment with, which over time will create a solid soiled area for planting and rejuvenation of vegetation. This all required long important careful planning to achieve the best results from a very difficult situation of not only the job itself, but the access to the water of a 17tonne Floating Excavator from the road to the lake itself.

After several visits/meeting with the contractors ‘Aquascience’ a suitable route was planned however this involved co-operation from our neighbours in order to enable us to pull it off, thankfully Jewsons kindly obliged. This part done, the next job for a couple of months was to create space for the Excavator route (which was not small) to get to the water, this meant fence lines taken down and several large trees felled along with a lot of undergrowth clearing.

After this work was done, we then had to clear the route from the memorial down to the waters edge, again meaning the loss of a couple of very large trees and some dense undergrowth.

After several months, these works were completed leading the way for the Excavator and contractors to work their magic. First the contractors had to drive wooden stakes at set intervals (about a foot apart) into the lakebed, and anchor these with steel wires, all this was done by hand. Once this was completed, they then had to use the geotextile material to make the curtain that would eventually be holding back the silt etc. This geotextile curtain must be held in place with steel wires that are fixed to the wooden stakes and then the curtain must be taken down and held in place at the lakebed.

With all this work completed it was the turn of the floating 17 tonne Excavator to arrive on site and start work. The set up of this alone took almost an entire day to get the floatation tanks on and secure.

Once in the water (scary moments) the machine made its way to the centre Isle and began to remove the silt and backfill the revetment.

In all just over 315 tons of silt etc has been removed and deposited behind the revetment which can only have a positive effect on Soake Pond itself in many ways. The typography of the lake has naturally changed from these works, offering deeper, less silty water to the inhabitants.

Once the Excavator was removed from site (an entire day taken) the next operation went into place of ordering and planting over 350 marginal plants on the new and very boggy centre Isle (a dangerous job at times in such deep mud/silt). Not only will these plants offer the aesthetics but also offer huge attraction to wildlife and of course lay a root system that will help strengthen the bank and offer screening.

The next 3-4 weeks was spent clearing up the huge amount of water debris and allowing the water to regain its quality from what can only be described as a yellow/brown/green soup. I am very pleased however to report that Soake suffered no fish loss because of these works and the poor water quality sustained afterwards.

While all these works were going on, work elsewhere around the Lake has been relentless, from clearing more ground, reduction in leaf litter around the lake, raking of all swims to ensure no snags left from the Excavator work to painting, and with all paths and swims having been dressed using tons of bark chippings, fence lines reinstated etc, all in a huge effort to get Soake Pond ready for its grand opening.

Therefore, I would personally and most sincerely like to thank the people named below firstly for their support, along with their efforts for every single day that they gave up their time and attended and worked relentlessly through months of what has been the biggest project that this club ‘PDAS’ has ever undertaken, and one that I am immensely proud to of been part of. Thank you to you all.

Nicky Woods, Grace Woods, Steve Merrivale, Steve Groom, Tom Norman, Tyler White, Tony Nolan, Barney Nolan Dave Jones, and Martin Loveman.