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Hi everyone

After a busy weekend by the river, there is lots to report on in this month’s newsletter.

Chalk Aquifer Alliance Talk
Planning to Fail - Ashley Smith
Wednesday 6th October - 7pm

Windrush Against Sewage Pollution’s (WASP) Ash Smith is back on 6th October for another hard-hitting Chalk Aquifer Alliance webinar, entitled Planning to Fail.

100 new houses mean about an extra 30 tonnes of sewage a day and the water industry is totally unprepared for the deluge. How can campaigners take advantage of this situation?

This kicks off a series of talks on the impact of housing development on chalk streams. 7pm, Wednesday 6th October, all welcome.

REGISTER HERE:
https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_axxHPWgZSpO0fle-WaCxqQ

Thames WaterBlitz results for the Rib & Quin are in

Fourteen sites were tested last weekend on the Rib & Quin as part of the Thames Waterblitz and the results can be seen in a new blog post on our website here. Many thanks to all the citizen scientist volunteers that took part and also to those who allowed us access to the river. Your support is very much appreciated.

You can also explore a map of all the new and previous waterblitz test results here and read Earthwatch Europe’s previous report here

Braughing Parish Council public consultation on Pentlows Meadow
FORQ supporters resident in Braughing Parish may be interested to participate in the parish council’s public consultation on Pentlow’s Meadow, an area of land to the north of the church. The council invited the charity Groundworks to develop plans for the site to the benefit of residents and nature and now seek views. A blog post on our website contains the links to the plans and survey.

New Water Quality Initiative, thanks to TeaTime Talks
As recently reported on our website, FORQ received a very generous donation recently from Standon’s TeaTime Talks, specifically to support our water quality initiative.

With the money donated FORQ have purchased three Phosphate Testing Kits, which will initially supplement testing at our riverfly monitoring sites. We are currently looking at Nitrate Testing equipment to add to the test kit, which we hope will expand across the catchment in the future.

If you are an individual, business, organisation or angling club/syndicate and would like to support this work, please get in touch.

New Chalk stream Restoration Strategy to be launched in October
I received today an email invitation to attend the launch of the CaBA Chalk Stream Restoration Strategy on the banks of the Mimram at Tewinbury Farm in October.

The speakers will be Rebecca Pow MP, Under Secretary of State at Defra, Emma Boyd, Chair of the Environment Agency, Tony Juniper, Chair of Natural England and Charles Rangeley-Wilson, Chair of The CaBA Chalk Stream Restoration Group.

I do hope to attend and look forward to reading the strategy, which I will share as soon as it is received.

For those that didn’t see it, Charles Rangeley-Wilson held a Q&A session on the draft strategy with the Chalk Aquifer Alliance, which you can find here along with links to the draft strategy.

I think that just about covers the latest news. In the next newsletter I’ll be able to report on how we are helping two local schools in the run-up to COP26 as well as news of upcoming events FORQ will be part of and hopefully, positive news from the restoration strategy. In the meantime, do keep an eye on the website and also on our social media channels.

Best wishes

Mark