Ayrshire Rivers Trust

28/04/2026

*****Job Advert*****

Office Administrator/Bookkeeper

Ayrshire Rivers Trust is looking to recruit an Office Administrator/Bookkeeper to support staff, organise and run the office and perform clerical duties at our base near Mauchline. There may also be opportunities/requirement to assist the biologists with other related Trust activities.

This will be a challenging, interesting and rewarding role that is central to the ongoing smooth operation of the Trust. A minimum of 22.5 hours per week will be required with the opportunity to work full-time hours (37.5) if desired/necessary. The Trust will be flexible to accommodate individual requirements where possible. Normal working hours are 9 am – 5pm Monday to Friday. Very occasionally, evening work may be required.

Full details of the position are detailed within the job description available at www.ayrshireriverstrust.org/blog

Closing date for applications is 14th May 2026 at 5pm.

Interviews will be held at ART’s office on the 18th and 19th May 2026.

Applicants should send their CV with a covering letter (no longer than one A4 side) by email to:

Stuart Brabbs
Manager of Ayrshire Rivers Trust
[email protected]

ART’s office address is: 2 Crosshill Cottage, Mauchline, KA5 5HJ.
The office is not on Public Transport routes.

Start date will be as soon as possible by agreement.

News Podcasting with the Farm Advisory Service. by Struan Candlish | Oct 14, 2025 | Conservation, General | 0 CommentsA couple of weeks ago I had the please of speaking with Alex Pirie from the Farm Advisory Service for his podcast 'Thrill of the Hill' the title of our episode being 'When the Rivers...

15/12/2025

It's been a while since we posted anything here and that's usually an indication that we are very busy and this time is no exception.

Apart from constantly developing projects and seeking out funding, we have also been finalising agreements with funders to deliver a major project on the Cessnock and a couple more on the Stinchar so the next year is looking busy already. Over and above that we are working on several other major developments which we will report more on in the New Year if successful.

Carolyn and I visited the upper Cessnock near Sorn this afternoon where our fencer Billy Semple is busy erecting a livestock fence around large enclosed of over 9 Hectare. Once the fencing is completed, we will be planting this site with around 5000 native hardwood trees many of which we have propagated from local seed and grown in our own small nursery.

It's rained non stop in this area for weeks so there was a lot of water on the site which was already wet anyway. It is making Billy's job all the harder but hopefully we will see some drier weather in the New Year in time for Ian and Cameron to make a start with planting. We should also manage to have some volunteer days for anyone wishing to help. I expect the whole team will be involved in this over the coming months.

Scottish Power Energy Networks are the funders and they worked for many months with ART to develop this project to meet their planning requirements. Of course there will be multiple benefits for the Cessnock with livestock exclusion and protection against erosion, shade once the trees develop and leaf litter and woody debris that help feed invertebrates and fish.... not to mention all the other benefits from creating broadleaved woodland for birds and small mammals in an otherwise pretty desolate and barren area.

We nipped up after lunch for a quick visit to check progress and in no time at all, the sun was dropping low in the sky as we rapidly approach the the winter solstice. These short days in the run up to Christmas feel very short indeed when there's work to be done outdoors. We will post more photos in due course but I thought people would like to see some real progress in the Upper Irvine catchment.

18/11/2025

By popular demand, we are going to run a few more rod building sessions in our office this winter and we thought we would kick this off on the evening of the 2nd of December and then again on the 10th.

We were recently gifted a selection of rod blanks and materials by Euan McGregor to support our evening classes that belonged to his late father Ian, a well known local rod builder and we intend to have some of the novices start building these.

We already have a few names that are interested but if you would like to come along to any evening sessions this winter, please get in touch. We will run more classes after the Christmas holidays but thought it would be good to make a start before. Rod building over winter is the perfect way to prepare for the coming season and what could better than having a cast and catching a fish on a home built rod?

16/09/2025

The River Girvan DSFB has a new web page where they will publish their latest information about the river and activities of the Board.

It is a brand new page and will continue to be developed and refined over the coming months. It is a step in the right direction and should be a one stop shop for everything about the river, fishing and Board's activities.

Discover the mission of the River Girvan District Salmon Fishery Board, dedicated to fishery management and river conservation.

16/09/2025

The green engineering we installed on the Girvan almost 2 years ago has settled in well and there's no sign of erosion or bank instability now. It is entirely vegetated with plenty of willows and other tree species setting down roots.
As these trees grow over the coming years, they should become a really dense buffer against the force of the water when larger spates come through this section of the river. Their trailing branches will offer cover for fish away from predators and help cool the water. Fish always appreciate shade. This should become perfect habitat for juvenile salmon and trout and the odd much larger trout.
Compare the photos from 2023 as we started work with those taken by Struan yesterday as he returned from the Stinchar.

16/09/2025

River Girvan District Salmon Fishery Board

NOTICE OF NEXT BOARD MEETING:

From: The Clerk to the River Girvan District Salmon Fishery Board, c/o Ayrshire Rivers Trust, 2 Crosshill Cottages, Near Mauchline KA5 5HJ

Email: [email protected] Telephone 01290 518130

You are hereby given formal notice of the next Board Meeting of the River Girvan District Salmon Fishery Board:

DATE: 14/10/2025
TIME: 7.00pm
MEETING TYPE: Board Meeting
VENUE: Carrick Centre, Culzean Rd, Maybole KA19 7DE

The board will set the date for the November Annual public Meeting (AGM) at this meeting. It would be helpful for seating and refreshments if those intending to come to the meeting could let the clerk know in advance.

The date of the Annual Public Meeting will be announced no less than 21 days prior to the meeting on this and the Board's new web site.

16/09/2025

We were on the River Stinchar yesterday continuing with our control programme for Japanese knotweed. The Board is supporting the Trust annually to strategically control JK across the catchment. With water levels far too big for electrofishing we opted to have a team of three out injecting JK. Rain stops a lot of our work but not injecting knotweed, so we donned the jackets and had productive session working between Hallowchapel and Asselfoot. We still have more control to undertake this year and will continue to chip away at untreated stands and double check some of the areas treated in previous seasons. We stem inject exclusively nowadays rather than spray any plants as our experience is that sprayed stands will invariably come back given sufficient time to recover. This suggests spraying doesn’t always kill the plant entirely whereas injection does seem to eradicate the plant.

21/08/2025

Here's another example of where we are seeing noticeable improvement in a burn within one year of our intervention.

On the Chalk River (aka The Mauchline burn), we fenced almost 2km of burn habitat last year to allow managed grazing of the water margins. We also installed green engineering in two areas to stabilise bank erosion.

This burn always deposited a bank of silt in the River Ayr where it joined near Stairaird. The main problem was livestock driven erosion and by fencing and green engineering, I've seen a huge reduction in the volume of silt entering the burn and river. This has to have benefits for salmon and trout spawning as silt really reduces egg survival.

While the fish stocks in the burn may take some time to recover, I'm certain they will and Struan and I caught a decent female trout on the burn just a week or two ago during a survey.

The upper stretch that was fenced is looking tremendous and while it is inaccessible to trout due to a barrier at a farm downstream (that can't easily be removed), reducing the inputs will help fish in this habitat all the way downstream to the river.

21/08/2025

Over the last few years we have been actively fencing and improving small burns that were in poor condition and supported fewer fish than they should have. Often after all other attempts to gain improvements through the regulator have failed, we have had to step in ourselves.

Even with a helping hand and considerable effort, it takes time for ecology to recover and this is largely due to the delay between excluding livestock and the burn habitat clearing silt from spawning gravels. It also takes time for the riparian vegetation to recover. However, in some cases, we are seeing rapid progress and are encouraged by the in stream improvement to both habitat and fish stocks.

Struan and I were on the Brockloch Burn in the Doon catchment this afternoon and I've posted a few images below that show the transformation to both banks and the river bed. We surveyed 2 sites and like last year, we found salmon in both and very respectable numbers of trout. That's a success and long may it continue which I'm sure it will.

Have a look through the images and see how the burn has transformed in just two and a half years.

21/08/2025

Our new (to us) van is now in service and we added the vinyl lettering and graphics this morning before Carolyn and Cameron headed off to the Garnock valley. We think it looks very sharp alongside the Landrover, I think we are all very pleased with our choices.

Let's hope both provide us long and reliable service for the next few years. We did consider all options including electric but the range they can do is far from adequate when we travel to remote areas.

The old van still awaits a new clutch being fitted but that will happen next Tuesday and perhaps we can add new graphics to give it a new lease of life while we decide whether to keep it or let it go.

20/08/2025

Ardrossan was our place of work today and more specifically, the Stanley Burn that once flowed out of Mill Glen reservoir before that was decommissioned, then through the town to the sea where Saltcoats and Ardrossan meet. We removed the rout from the reservoir before decommissioning and were aware that there were good numbers of eels at that time.

This work was to inform a community group of the base line fish population before they attempt to develop a project aimed at restoring function and form to a heavily modified stretch.

We have been advising them how to proceed and following earlier discussions, they secured a small pot of funding to allow our surveys and CBEC to assess the burn's potential for restoration, assess flood risk and develop outline designs for public consultation. If feasible, they may then look for further funding to undertake the restoration itself.

We fished 2 sites and collected invertebrate samples. While we expected to catch a few trout, minnows and eels, there was always a chance there may be other curios such as lamprey or coarse species. Fortunately there were no introduced species and the only other fish we did succeed in catching were sticklebacks.

Trout were few and far between but eels were abundant and there was one sizeable fish that slithered from the stonework downstream of the footbridge site. Himalayan Balsam was rife along the burn and we recommended that the community group attempt to bring this under control next year as it would help reduce costs show any work go ahead.

We will provide the group with a summary report of our findings with images and any recommendations.

There were one or two interesting characters that stopped to talk and offer us advice but we are always pleased to hear other's opinions. All in all I think the team enjoyed looking at a new burn although I believe we have worked here before with the local school when we ran trout on the classroom about 10 years ago.