£10,000 grant awarded to support Diss Mere project
14 October 2026
Diss Town Council is delighted to announce that it has been awarded £10,000 from South Norfolk Council’s Nature Conservation Fund to support the Diss Clear Mere Project.
The community-led project aims to improve the biodiversity and ecological health of Diss Mere, while helping to build a greater understanding of the challenges facing the Mere and encouraging local people to get involved in its future.
Diss Mere is a much-loved feature of the town and forms part of Diss Park, providing an important area of publicly accessible green and blue space. The project will explore practical ways to enhance habitats within the Mere, while maintaining public and fishing access.
The project will include approximately 30 metres of native marginal planting and up to 20 floating wetland modules, subject to specialist ecological assessment and final design. These will provide additional habitat for aquatic invertebrates, shelter for fish and flowering plants for pollinating insects.
Alongside the practical habitat improvements, the project will investigate reported concerns around oxygen depletion and seasonal algal blooms through water-quality monitoring and ecological surveys.
The Friends of Diss Mere, a community-led initiative bringing together around 17 local volunteers, will play a key role in delivering the project in partnership with Diss Town Council. Volunteers will support a range of activities, including water-quality monitoring, native planting, the supervised construction of floating wetland modules, biodiversity surveys and ongoing maintenance. The group also hopes to grow its membership to around 30 local residents and students.
Three volunteer bioblitzes will also take place during the project, allowing residents and students to record wildlife and habitats around the Mere and build their knowledge of the area’s ecology.
The project will be supported by specialist freshwater ecological advice, with findings and monitoring results shared with the community to help build an evidence base for the longer-term management of Diss Mere.
Diss Town Clerk, Sarah Villafuerte-Richards, said:
“We are delighted to have been awarded £10,000 from South Norfolk Council’s Nature Conservation Fund. Diss Mere is such an important part of our town, and this project gives us an exciting opportunity to bring together local knowledge, community involvement and specialist expertise to better understand and enhance this valuable natural asset.
“We are particularly pleased that the project will involve local residents and students, giving people the opportunity to learn more about the Mere and play an active role in caring for it. I would like to thank Joolz Thompson, Francois Denis and Jim Bootman for their hard work in developing the grant application.”
Joolz Thompson, Chief Executive of Community Climate Action, said: “Creating the connections and confidence for practical local action to flourish is at the heart of our work in Diss. The Clear Mere project shows what is possible when residents, volunteers and the Town Council come together around a place the whole town cares about. This funding is a wonderful boost for the group and for Diss, helping us improve habitat, learn more about the Mere and build the long-term community stewardship needed to care for it.”
The funded habitat works are planned to take place between November 2026 and February 2027, with the funded delivery phase due to be completed by 31 March 2027. Monitoring and maintenance will continue beyond the funded period under Diss Town Council’s oversight.
The project will maintain the existing free public access to Diss Mere and its surroundings.
The £10,000 grant forms the main cash funding for the project, which has a total estimated project cost of £11,000. The project will also benefit from significant volunteer contributions, with approximately 570 hours of volunteer time estimated during the delivery phase.
