February Newsletter; What's been happening lately?
- saveourswale
- Mar 9
- 3 min read
SOS held a coffee morning at the Town Hall in Richmond on the 8th February and raised a total of £397.75. Thank you to all our volunteers who donated cakes, raffle and tombola prizes and who helped out on the day. A great achievement!
Save Our Swale Objectives & Key Actions for 2025
Thank you to all of those who attended our November session and input to our objectives and actions for 2025. Here is the summary of the output of that session:
Objective 1: Achieve interim self-designation by end-March 2025: achieve Designated Bathing Water Status (DBWS) by end-March 2026.
Actions:
Installation of self-designation signage - end March 2025
Hold promotional events, e.g. market stalls, coffee mornings, public meetings - ongoing
Data collection on river users for DBWS completed - end of September 2025
Produce promotional materials and consultation documents for DBWS to be shared - end of April 2025
Submission of application as per revised DBWS criteria - Oct 2025
Objective 2: Hold Yorkshire Water, OFWAT, the EA and the Government to account
Actions:
Publish results of monthly water quality and invertebrate monitoring - ongoing
Prepare positioning statement on PR24 price increase - end Feb 2025
Prepare campaign strategy for promoting non-payment of water bills campaign - end of Feb 2025
2025 Monitoring Programme of water quality and invertebrates agreed - end of Jan 2025
Objective 3: Challenge Yorkshire Water to ensure local sewage system (Waste Water Treatment Works) is fit for purpose.
Actions:
Establish current capacity of WWTW - end March 2025
Identify Future requirements - end of Quarter 1
Present findings to stakeholders via public meeting, written report, press and media campaign - end of Quarter 2
River Festival 2025?
At the November session, there was support for holding a festival later in 2025 to celebrate the river and to create interest and involvement across the whole community. SOS would love to have such an event. To do this, we would need a separate sub-committee (with experience of events organising) to take this idea forward.
If you feel this is something you would like to become involved with, or you know of someone who would, please contact us on saveourswale@gmail.com.
Get involved!
Are you feeling annoyed about paying for a service that you are not receiving? Fed up with sewage being dumped into our river? Sickened about the absence of investment and the obscene shareholder dividends and Water Executives' bonuses? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you probably agree that privatisation hasn't worked.
Clive Lewis, MP, is tabling a Water (Special Measures) Bill on the 28th March to put water ownership back on the agenda and he needs the support of MPs representing your views to turn up and support the bill.
Clive explains what the Water (Special Measures) Bill is about in this video on his Facebook page.
Keep informed
Save Our Swale is part of a wider network of campaign groups, all of which come under the umbrella of the Sewage Campaign Network.
Click the link to view their campaign: https://www.sewagecampaignnetwork.org.uk/
The founding members of the group include Save Windermere, and this month we wanted to shine a spotlight on the successful campaign which they are running and the positive impact they are having, holding United Utilities to account. A key focus for the Save Windermere campaign has been the ineffective treatment works at Far Sawrey. The linked report from their blog details their approach and the subsequent environmental improvements their campaign has secured.
Click to view the report: https://www.savewindermere.com/news/far-sawrey-permit-review
Dates for the Diary
SOS will be on Richmond Market on the following dates this year:
15th March
19th July
6 Sept
Come along to see us and find out more about our campaign and what activities we are currently involved in.
The next Water Quality Monitoring Session is Sunday 23rd Feb. More detail will follow in a separate email to all WQM volunteers.
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