River Crane – Environmental Asset or Urban Drain?

River Crane – Environmental Asset or Urban Drain?

Public meeting on 31st October

Following two major, and several minor, pollution incidents over the last three years, alongside ongoing chronic water quality problems, FORCE has organised a public meeting to debate the issues and help chart a way forwards. The meeting, titled “River Crane – Environmental Asset or Urban Drain?” will be held at Whitton Community Centre on Friday 31st October. Representatives from the Environment Agency (Caroline Douglass – area manager), Thames Water (Richard Aylard – external affairs director) and FORCE will discuss the issues, and field questions from the public, under the chairmanship of local MP Vince Cable.

We hope this meeting will review the past and current situation and, more importantly, consider the potential for the river moving forwards towards good ecological status.

The meeting will run from 7pm to 8pm and be followed by informal discussion. Whitton Community Centre is on Percy Road TW2 6JL, next to the Twickenham Academy and just off the A316. To ask a question at the meeting please email it to info@force.org.uk together with your name.

We look forward to seeing you there

Regards,

Rob Gray
Chair of FORCE
http://www.force.org.uk
https://www.facebook.com/friendsrivercrane

If I am around will get along, could be good. Promise to behave and not abuse Thames Water

Well I will try! and make them squirm

Reminder, this coming Friday, Whitton community centre, 7pm
http://www.getwestlondon.co.uk/news/local-news/vince-cable-chair-meeting-addressing-7904327

Just noticed, if we want to ask a question at this event, we have to email it in advance.
Any questions?

Who will be there:
Vince Cable MP
Richard Aylard (Thames Water)
Caroline Douglas (EA area manager)
FORCE

Ed,

50/50 if I can attend. If you are e-mailing them my question would be...

"Can Thames Water confirm what mitigations have been put in place to avoid a recurrence of the two recent major pollution incidents affecting the Crane and has an assessment of the sewage network in the areas covered by the Crane (i.e. Heathrow to Isleworth) taken place in order to identify potential maintenance work that should be be carried out in order to prevent a repeat of malfunctioning infrastructure and therefore minimise the likelihood of further major pollution incidents taking place?"

Also something along the lines of this for the EA/CVP/TW..feel free to re-word...

"When do you envisage re-stocking of fish will take place in light of recent findings that water quality is still poor and can assurances be provided by TW/CVP that funds will be available when that time comes as in terms of priorities for funding, fish re-stocking must be top of the list as they have suffered the most damage and requires help with active restoration".

Thanks,

Robin.

Interesting evening;  Cable was very poor as Chair, he was unable to control the meeting effectively and didn't stick to the agenda.  It degenerated into random open-floor questions, eventually Robin stood up and asked a question, which was that could we go through the pre-asked questions list please.  He skipped questions submitted by people who had to leave early or simply weren't there, though most points were covered one way or another.

(To be fair there was one noisy heckler at the front who just would not shut up, but I'd have thought Cable would have the skills to deal with someone like that - surely better to let him get it out in one go than try to shout him down).  It wasn't a great choice of venue, they didn't have a microphone set up (despite the room appearing to be kitted out for sound) and there was music coming through from an adjacent room in the centre.  Fireworks outside drowned out voices on several occasions.  The projector screen was laughably small for the room size and the EA couldn't get their presentation to work on the laptop, so had to hold up pictures, despite this they presented the material quite well.    I've made it sound a bit shambolic, it wasn't really that bad, but nowhere near as well managed as the RUG8 meeting the previous night.

Richard Aylard from Thames Water presented the usual stuff about mis-connections affecting the river, how they trace and rectify the problems.  Twickenham is the worst borough in the whole Thames region for blocking drains with fatbergs and wet wipes, TW are beginning an aggressive advertising campaign to highlight this problem.   They will be promoting some freebies this Christmas to assist with scraping out and binning your cooking fat instead of putting it down the drain.

Aylard went on to explain about the broken penstocks that caused the 2011 incident.  On the recent prosecution, Rob Gray from Force said that he was disapointed with the £76,000 fine, which Aylard countered that the judge had started at £360,000 and reduced due to the £400,000 mitigation fund and so on;  Would we rather that £360,000 went to the treasury or £400,000 to the river?  I stood up at this point and stated that I'd prefer if his company's mind were better concentrated by having to pay both amounts.  

Heathrow are investing £16m on flooding and pollution from the eastern balancing ponds, this is as a result of CAA and EA regulation, about time too.  They work to a 5-year cycle and have just begun "cycle 6". The aim is to halve the amount of glycol used.

The EA explained about the broken sludge pipe that had caused the 2013 incident, they had unfortunately been unable to identify the perpetrators (fly tippers) so no prosecution is likely.

Another fish restocking will be attempted this December.

Most of the people making a lot of noise in the meeting were anglers I think.

Met Kevin Booth, a local angler who has kept meticulous records of Crane pollution over 30 years, we invited him to join our forum.

Met Nigel Botherway who has taken over Keith Arthur's radio show, he'd like to interview us at the weekend.

nice one ed.