Whatever the Environment Agency says, we *will* restore our river… Volunteers were back out on the River Roding this weekend, ignoring the threats & lies of @EnvAgency, to battle against the odds to restore a part of the river that the authorities have left to die. The stretch of the Roding around Ilford has some of the worst problems on the river: rubbish and invasive species on its banks; sewage in its water; and huge amounts of rubbish & debris in the channel. I applied for funding from the Mayor to sort out this part of the river (which would have paid for floating barges and skips), but having been rejected twice, I decided we should just get on with it. This is not an easy part of the river to clean, as the water is deep in places & the high concrete banks means it’s impossible to get large objects out of the river in most places. Luckily, our previous clearance of the area north of ilford bridge in May gave us an exit point, and I brought up a large rowboat and canoe. Teams in waders could load these boats with rubbish & then float them to be unloaded & the waste taken up onto the road. As some of the debris was deeply buried in the mud, we set up a winch on one of the trees to haul it out. We got an unbelievable array of crap from the river: a TV, mattress, shopping trolleys, pipes, traffic cones, random bits of metal and even a bench, which is now cleaned off and offers a place to sit beside the river. This section of river- right in the centre of Ilford- could be genuinely lovely. Whilst it’s in a desperate state, we saw large mullet, dragonflies and reedbeds slowly returning along the edge where we had removed invasive species. There’s still much to do though. Do message if you’d like to join us on Sunday 26th of July for another day of in-river cleaning at this spot.