We always knew there had to be some point in playing the National Lottery so assiduously…

… and now it’s all becoming clear… with a whopping £2m just awarded by the Heritage Lottery and Big Lottery funds to join Croydon’s earlier £400,000 Parks for People win, plus £1m from Barrett Homes in addition to their own deculverting scheme…

… to put the Wandle back into Wandle Park for the first time in 40 years.

As our good friend Dave Webb from the Environment Agency said in the Council’s own press release:

“Opening up this culverted section of the Wandle will restore the river as the focal point of the park and provide a wonderful environment for people and wildlife. It will be a shining example of how to improve a local park while also managing flood risk, assisting with adaptation to climate change and creating a healthy river.”

We couldn’t have put it better ourselves.  Now, all we’ll need to do is sort out the urban runoff and other diffuse pollution problems from the rest of those culverts under Croydon…