News and events
Extra cleanup for Take Part, Take Pride - Saturday 12 July, 2 to 4 pm
The Wandle Trust is pleased to once again be supporting Sutton Council's week of events for Take Part, Take Pride with a cleanup on Saturday 12 July from 2 to 4 pm. We will meeting by the bridge over the river at Goat Road / Middleton Road. Click here for a map of the meeting location at 2 pm. This area attracts a lot of litter but if we get many hands we should be able to clear it pretty quickly. The water is shallow and suitable for children to wade in, provided each one is accompanied by a parent. Please do turn up promptly at 2 for the health and safety briefing if you can. If you arrive after that please look for one of us in the high viz vests and we'll sign you in and brief you.
If we manage to clear this area, we propose to move to Culvers Avenue and clean the eastern stretch of the river from there upstream to Nightingale Road / Hackbridge Road. People can either jump in their cars and drive to the second location or walk, probably pushing wheelbarrows, along the river. Again this stretch should be safe for children so please do bring them along.
We have a number of children's and adult's waders for those who wish to go in the river. We will provide gloves and litter pickers. Strong boots, trainers or wellies are recommended for those who will be on the banks and please wear old clothes that you don't mind getting dirty.
Wandle Trust picnic - Sunday 13 July, King George's Park
We will be holding a picnic to thank all our volunteers for their hard work on Sunday 13 July in King George's Park. The picnic will take place from around 3 o'clock after the cleanup that day which will take place at a nearby stretch of river in Wandsworth. Unfortunately the cleanup will not be suitable for children, however, we'd still very much like to see them at the picnic. Details of the exact location will follow in due course but the arrow on the map is likely to be about right! However, in the meantime, to help with catering arrangements please email erica.evans@wandletrust.org if you're planning to come to the picnic. We hope to see lots of our volunteers there!
Wandle Rehabilitation Project - Public Meeting - 17 March 2008
Jointly hosted by Thames Water and the Wandle Trust to launch public consultation on the next 5 years of the Wandle’s restoration, this Public Meeting took place on Monday 17 March, from 7.00pm to 9.00pm, in the Function Room at Morden Hall.
Chaired by Zoe Colbeck (Chair of the Wandle Forum and Property Manager of the National Trust’s Morden Hall Park), an impressive lineup of speakers also included Richard Aylard (Thames Water), Theo Pike (Wandle Trust), Angela Gorman (Groundwork London), Stuart Clough (APEM), Will Tall (Riverfly) and Jo Heisse (EA).
After the presentations, the floor was thrown open to questions: you’ll find all the details here.
“Trout in the Classroom” 2007/8
It’s “Trout in the Classroom” time again – and our 20 schools are almost ready to release their carefully-nurtured trout fry into their new home in the Wandle. Here’s when and where these exciting events will be happening this year:
Thursday 27 March from 1.45pm at Richmond Green
Croydon schools: Croydon Parish, Gonville, Kingsley, West Thornton
Sutton schools: St Philomena's, Sutton Grammar
Thursday 3 April from 1.45pm at Mapleton Road
Wandsworth schools: All Farthing, Broomwood, Honeywell, Hotham, Swaffield, Garrat Park, Oak Lodge
The Wandle Valley Regional Park: time to air your views!
Did you know that there is a growing plan for a new Regional Park in the Wandle Valley?
Groundwork London, the Wandle Forum and the London Boroughs of Croydon, Sutton, Merton and Wandsworth, together with the Wandle Trust and other key stakeholders, are working together to plan future improvements for the Wandle Valley Regional Park area.
Now, we need to have your ideas about what will make a great Wandle Valley Regional Park. These ideas could be related to the River Wandle itself, or the nearby parks, or the nearby industrial areas, or the rich heritage of the area, or the views.... whatever you think, we want to know!
Please visit www.wandlevalleypark.org.uk where you can find out more, explore the whole area through an interactive map and leave your comments or suggestions for this new Regional Park. Don't delay in having your say - this phase of consultation ends on March 31st 2008!
Watch the Wandle Trust on BBC1 – 7.30 Friday 22 February 2008
Following Thames Water's pledge to support the Wandle's ecological recovery with a Rehabilitation Project worth £500,000 over the next 5 years, Inside Out featured a story on the River Wandle in the first programme of its new series on Friday 22 February. Ray Hough, the producer, and Matthew Wright, the presenter, are both keen fishermen and enjoyed filming at our January cleanup in Wandsworth. The programme included footage of some of our fisherman friends at Morden Hall Park and focussed on the aftermath of the pollution incident in September. See the cleanup report for more photos.
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Wild trout seen spawning in Wandle headwaters
For perhaps the first time in 100 years, wild trout have been sighted spawning in the Wandle's headwaters, well above the point where the pollution entered the river on 17 September 2007.
It's an amazing vindication of the success of our annual Trout in the Classroom programme, and a great pointer to the Wandle's potential as a sustainable mixed-species urban chalkstream.
Read the full story by Charles Rangeley-Wilson here in the Daily Telegraph.
Help clear floating pennywort out of the lake at Ravensbury Park
- dates for January, February and March
We're working with the Friends of Ravensbury Park to clear floating pennywort out of the lake at Ravensbury Park. This work involves a team in the water in waders dragging the pennywort to the bank where a second team hauls it out and transports it in wheelbarrows to a site in the park where it can rot down. We've met twice already, in November and December, and have made a really good start to the work, clearing a channel through the weed which has enabled the water to flow through the lake once again. We work from 10 am to 1 pm and we'll be meeting again on the following Saturdays: 19 January, 16 February and 15 March. Please bring your own waders and wheelbarrow if you have them. The meeting point is on the jetty by the lake, click here for location.
Please email WandleTrustGill@aol.com if you have any questions or ask Gill about this at a cleanup.
Wandle devastated by second pollution disaster
Following August’s serious pollution incident, the Wandle was hit by an even greater catastrophe on Monday 17 September, when a large quantity of sodium hydrochloride cleaning solution was released from Beddington sewage treatment works into the Mill Green area of the river.
Local Environment Agency officers were on the scene within minutes, but at least 2000 further fish were instantly killed over a 5km reach, and longer-term impact on water weeds and invertebrate life in the river has been much more severe.
Thames Water has pledged to work with all local groups to repair the damage. In the next few weeks the Wandle Trust, the Wandle Piscators, the Environment Agency, and the Anglers’ Conservation Association will be consulting closely with Thames Water, putting all the necessary safeguards in place to ensure that our unceasing work on the Wandle can never be compromised in this way again.
Our monthly community cleanups and annual Trout in the Classroom programme will continue, and we remain more committed than ever to restoring the Wandle to full health and biodiversity as the very best sustainable urban showcase chalkstream in the world.
Watch the Wandle Trust on BBC1’s Countryfile on Sunday 16 September at 11 am
Juliet Morris and a production team from the BBC spent over two hours with cleanup volunteers from the Wandle Trust on the evening of Monday 10 September at Trewint Street. The programme on Sunday focussed on London and featured our mini cleanup as well as footage from other stretches of the Wandle. We are grateful to Wandsworth Council who at very short notice came out and picked up the rubbish we had collected.
This photo shows Gill being interviewed by Juliet Morris – both suitably attired in waders!
The whole production team with Erica and Gill
If after seeing the programme you’d like to support us, why not join us at future cleanup? We’d love to see you. We’d also really appreciate help with funding, our Trout in the Classroom project, fund-raising and our river regeneration project. Please do contact us by email or phone, we’d love to hear from you.
Wandle fish killed by pollution
At around 3.30pm on Wednesday 8 August, the Wandle was seriously affected by a brief but deadly surge of pollution that appeared to originate at the top of the Mill Green branch of the river in Sutton.
Many specimen fish of all species were killed as the river rose suddenly and took on the grey-green colour and appearance of “chopped seaweed”, according to one witness.
We would like to thank everyone involved in trying to save the dying fish, particularly the landlord of the Queen’s Head pub on Mill Green, who made sure to get a water sample at the height of the incident.
Our investigation of this catastrophe is ongoing, in partnership with the Environment Agency and concerned members of the local community. Look here for our forum blog of the latest information.
Take Part, Take Pride 2007
On the evening of 6 June, 14 of us joined Richard Harris, Sutton Council’s Biodiversity Officer, to clean up the Wandle Valley Wetland Local Nature Reserve as part of their Take Part, Take Pride week of activities.
Richard was very grateful for our efforts “many, many thanks … it is always a pleasure to work with the Wandle Trust” and has promised to keep us informed of the goings on at the reserve. He has also invited Wandle Trust members to the official launch of the Anton Crescent Wetland Local Nature Reserve on Saturday 16 June. Please click here for details of the launch.
Wandle Wedding
Congratulations to Alan and Gwen who were married on Sunday 22 April. Mr and Mrs McGill have been regular Wandle Trust volunteers and met at a cleanup 18 months ago. To remind them of how they met, they were presented with a poem written by Erica (which can be viewed by clicking here) surrounded by cleanup photos.
Independent Article
Victoria Summerley, a journalist and Wandsworth resident, and her son were amongst the volunteers at our January cleanup. Their efforts on the day were much appreciated as was Victoria’s account of the cleanup in her Town Life column in the Independent on Wednesday 24 January. Please click here to read a copy of her account.
Wandle Video
Local singer/songwriter Dick Philpot and his wife Viv have shot a lovely video of the River Wandle that can be viewed at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yHD2_hg6XOI.
The video was filmed on
two brilliant sunny days, one in November and another just before Xmas. Viv
is currently doing an Art Project on dying using traditional methods such as
those used by William Morris and the video is likely to be used as part of her
show later this year.
For more about Dick and Viv visit
http://www.dickphilpot.com and http://www.vivphilpot.com
Fishing for the cameras
Some of you might remember the BBC’s visit to the Wandle more than a year ago, bringing one of Britain’s most famous fishing and conservation writers to help us pull scooters and shopping trolleys out of the river at Trewint Street in Earlsfield.
After that, Charles Rangeley-Wilson travelled on to India, Bhutan and South America with the same cameras, filming a 4-part travel series called “The Accidental Angler”. The London episode, including his adventures on our own little river, was shown on BBC2 on Sunday 3 December.
He even found time to write a fascinating book about his experiences, on the Wandle and elsewhere, and you can catch one of his interviews here.
Our next Wandle cleanup
For details of where to find our next cleanup, please click here.