Councillor calls for project at Rasen’s mill pond area

Coun Neil Taylor says the ‘mill pond’ area opposite the town’s church has become ‘unpleasant’ and ‘unsightly’.

In a report to council at this month’s meeting, Coun Taylor said: “I often took my young sons to feed the ducks and enjoy the atmosphere. - the pond was quite extensive. It was clean around the sides . There wasn’t all the growth.

“Today, the area is unpleasant. The mill pond is silted up around its edges and sandbars have built up in the main channel.

“Trees and bushes have grown up along the banks.”

The area has often been the talk of work and in the past. Extensive work was done to create a family-friendly area, with seating and an interpretation board to show the wildlife of the area.

More recently, in 2019, members of Market Rasen Action Group organised a tidy up of the area, including the river itself.

Coun Taylor said: “It is such a shame as people clearly worked very hard in the interim to do something about the mill.

“Now, the litter bin is a disgrace, quite frankly and the notice board has gone.

“When it was there, I thought it was very interesting and gave a lot of information.

“Quite frankly, it [the area] reflects badly on the town and needs addressing.”

As a former geography and geology teacher, as well as being a former member of the Ancholme Drainage Board, Coun Taylor said he would be happy to take the lead and, with the responsible powers, work out a plan to restore this potentially attractive area.

He continued: “Having spoken to several local landowners with responsibility for maintaining the riverbank, the problem of the silting is down to the fact the sluice gate that allows the overflow channel to flow is left open; on whose authority I have been unable to find out.

“I am surprised the river authorities have allowed it to get to the stage.

“The amount of sand is such that it would need digging out around the edges of the pond, so it does need some financial support.

“We don’t want it to be pristine, its a natural feature

“Having seen the community effort at planting trees,however, I am confident that we could get enough volunteers to form a working group to undertake much of the work.

“We want to make the town more attractive and this is something we can do.”

• What do you think? Would you support a project at the mill pond area? What are the other ‘grot spot’ areas of town? Let us know here at the Rasen Mail.