Thames21

There’s only two days to go until the general election. We won't tell you who to vote for, but we will tell you that the next government must prioritise rivers. We want clean, healthy rivers for people and for wildlife. Water companies, regulators, businesses, the government and communities must protect the River Thames and its tributaries. Unfortunately, our rivers are currently far from thriving. They are being battered by sewage pollution, plastic pollution and chemical pollution. We need the next gov't to step up and tackle these issues. #voteforrivers

And that’s that! London Rivers Week is over for another year. We want to say a huge thank you to everybody who attended London Rivers Week events. We also want to say a massive thank you to all of the organisers of the events, our partners and our funders. They all helped to make this festival a fantastic one. We ended London Rivers Week 2024 with a bang with a Mama Osun/clean-up tie-up by Battersea Bridge yesterday (see pics below). What a lovely day, what a lovely week!

What do you want from the next government (in terms of a manifesto for rivers)? This was the question that BBC’s Tom Edwards posed to our CEO Chris Coode on Friday. Chris made a brilliant appearance on BBC last week. He said: “We want a properly regulated water industry that is incentivised to improve its infrastructure to maintain river health.” With the general election fast approaching, we need our new government to step up and commit to restoring the health of our rivers. The climate emergency has increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events and governments, water companies, regulators, businesses and communities must protect the River Thames and its tributaries in order for them to be better prepared to tackle the impacts of droughts and floods brought on by the climate crisis. Unfortunately, our rivers are currently far from thriving. They are being battered by sewage pollution, plastic pollution and chemical pollution. We need the next government to step up and tackle these issues. ✊🏿✊🏽✊🏻Join us and #VoteForRivers. Take action: Speak to your candidates, online or in person. Look for nature-based solutions in party manifestos. Spread the word and use #VoteForRivers Image copyright: BBC

What an amazing London Rivers Week 2024 walk and talk by the River Crane run by Friends Of the River Crane Environment's (FORCE) Jane Satchwell and Zoological Society of London (ZSL)'s Joe Pecorelli. Attendees learnt about the river improvements taking place here (i.e. re-naturalising the banks) and the new fish pass at Mereway Weir in Twickenham. There a few remaining London Rivers Week tickets for this weekend (29th-30th June). Please book tickets here: https://lnkd.in/ezdHfUYD #londonriversweek2024

Our Communications Manager Liz Gyekye appears on South Korean TV channel KBS (the South Korean equivalent of BBC) outlining the challenges of sewage pollution and the solutions needed to fix it. Please watch video below (2.16 mins in). Water companies must increase their investment in sewerage infrastructure to stop sewage spills and create healthy rivers for wildlife and for people. The government needs to appropriately fund and direct the Environment Agency to fulfil its duties to monitor and regulate all polluters. It must also ensure that the EA is enabled to take robust enforcement action against those who pollute to incentivise them to invest in good environmental practices. OFWAT need to urgently increase the prioritisation of spending for water companies to invest in environmental protection and restoration. All this must be done in collaboration. We all need to up our game. https://lnkd.in/eu-_jCmC

There's a fungus amongst us! So much fun was had at a recent London Rivers Week 2024 event by the River Ching in East London. The London Fungus Network gave a guided walk to attendees whilst discussing how wood-decaying fungi are fundamental to the biodiversity and shape of rivers. They spotted an impressive Southern Bracket fungus at the base of a Hornbeam tree they found on the River Ching. It's one of wood rotting fungal species that help recruit woody material to our rivers. More interesting London Rivers Week events await you. Please view last-remaining tickets available here: https://lnkd.in/ezdHfUYD Image copyright: London Fungus Network #londonriversweek2024

Around 10 volunteers, including the Mayor of the London Borough of Bromley Dr David Jefferys, joined us at Glassmill Pond today as part of London Rivers Week. They worked hard moving cobblestones to enhance fish passage in the new channel, learned about our water quality and riverfly monitoring programs and saw first-hand some of the tiny creatures that live in that stretch of the River Ravensbourne. Listen to Carolina Pinto, Thames21 River Restoration Manager, and local volunteer Jeff, talking about the event and the project. There’s still time to participate in London Rivers Week. Check out the calendar https://ow.ly/Rfsy50Sr1k7 and join us! #thames21 #londonriversweek2024 #riverconservation #volunteer #glassmillpond

We want to say a massive thank you to local volunteers and our partners London Borough of Barking and Dagenham for their help in clearing Himalayan balsam from around the Gores Brook, which runs through Goresbrook Park in East London. Thanks to all who got involved in this hard work! We appreciate this. The event was led by Thames21's Michael O'Neill. The Gores Brook is a short river (only 7km long) that rises north of Parsloes Park and flows south, through Goresbrook Park, towards the Thames. Some of this river is 'buried'. In the 1930s, the stretch of brook flowing through the Park  was channelled through a pipe and buried, i.e. ‘culverted’. What is left is currently open grass-land. Working with our partners, we have plans to uncover the Brook - to return it to its former glory within Parsloes Park. At the moment, we have progressed to the design development and optioning stage, incorporating valuable inputs from the community. Watch this space for updates! #londonriversweek2024 #GoresBrook #culverted #rivers #eastlondon #buriedrivers #ParsloesPark #Goresbrookpark

Our Communications Manager Liz Gyekye did a recent interview with London Live to call for London to become a ‘sponge city’ – a city better designed to absorb and hold rainwater – in order to ward off the negative impacts of the climate emergency. It is a call urged by the organisers of London Rivers Week 2024. The climate emergency has increased the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events and governments, businesses and communities must protect London’s rivers in order for them to be better prepared to tackle the impacts of droughts and floods brought on by the climate crisis. In tandem with tackling pollution at source, including sewage pollution, to make our rivers cleaner and healthier, all river stakeholders will need to work together to make the city ‘sponge like’, she stressed in the interview. Nature-based solutions such as wetlands can absorb excess rainfall, filter out pollutants, slow down water flow to rivers and reduce the risk of flooding to homes. They also provide habitats for nature and studies show that being near nature can provide a benefit to people’s mental and physical wellbeing. Read full press release here: https://lnkd.in/etJyNavK #londonriversweek2024

It was fantastic to see members of the local community get involved in a walk and water quality monitoring event along the Mutton Brook recently as part of London Rivers Week 2024. Mutton Brook is a stream which runs between East Finchley and Hendon in the London Borough of Barnet. At this Saturday event, our team sat down with the attendees to discuss the potential sources of pollution, including sewage pollution, that were negatively impacting on the Brook. The team also discussed ways in which volunteers could become citizen scientists to help us monitor water quality. Thames21’s Philippa Nicholls provided training and testing equipment to the volunteers that came to the event. She described how citizen scientists can use these pieces of kit (including ‘Hanna checkers’) to help us to build up a picture of which areas along the Brook are suffering from pollution and identify the causes. Essentially, they can help us become the eyes and ears of the river. It was a very engaging and informative session. There are still some tickets available for the last few London Rivers Week events running this week. Please book your tickets here: https://lnkd.in/eipqpEKb #londonriversweek2024