What does your River mean to you?

The River Wandle has an extraordinary community surrounding it. In the last few months alone, we have met inspiring local residents, discovered new schools, universities, sporting groups, religious groups, historical societies, and many more people who all seem to feel incredibly connected to their local environment and importantly, the river that runs through it.

When asked “what does this river mean to you?”, each individual may have a different answer, but in essence, no matter who they are, they have a deep connection to The River Wandle. It takes a natural course through their home, has a rich history, and they feel protective of it.

As such an extraordinary and unique urban chalkstream, we want to draw attention to what the river means to those that surround it, and why it’s so important to protect our broader river health.

At the UK River Summit & Festival, we will have a talk led by Dr Jack Hogan around the history of the Wandle, and we are working with the Wandle Piscators and the Wandle Industrial Museum to deliver workshops on river restoration and William Morris textile demonstrations (respectively) too. We hope to expand this further.

Last week, we therefore met with local community groups to talk about different ways in which they can be involved. We invited community groups to meet the UK River Summit & Festival event team and learn a bit more about our event. We had some insightful conversations and learnt a lot about different initiatives currently taking place.

If you and your team are interested in attending, we have a limited number of complimentary tickets available to the local community for the afternoon schedule of events. Please do not hesitate to get in touch with us and: