Here in Oxford, we love our rivers. It’s not an exaggeration to say the rivers are the lifeblood of this city: from the students rowing and punting on them, to the popular riverside nature reserves where locals have swum for decades, to the tourist boat tours, to the resident canal boat community.

People in Oxford care deeply about having clean, healthy rivers for people and wildlife. Last year, raw sewage spilt into the upper Thames from Thames Water sewage treatment works for 50,000 hours. The people of Oxford, backed by Oxford City Council and The Rivers Trust, thought this was totally unacceptable, and after a protest and petitions, the Oxford Rivers Project was created to tackle the problem.

With a small team of 3, only working 3 paid days a week between us, plus some incredibly dedicated volunteers, and in only 6 months, we have achieved an incredible amount.

We now have weekly bacterial water quality testing at 18 river locations, a direct line to Thames Water, rocketing sewage pollution up their agenda, over 100 volunteers engaged and trained in surveying rivers and river use, and national and local news coverage.

However, we’re not quite there yet. By the end of October, we want to:

- Finish compiling the application to make Port Meadow a bathing water river, which will mean water quality testing and protection for generations;

- Employ experts from the Rivers Trust and elsewhere to analyse the water quality data results and display them so everyone can understand;

- Provide expenses for our amazing water quality testing volunteers.

Unfortunately, we do not have all the money we need to get the project over the line: we are looking for £1,500. Any donation you can give, great or small, would be hugely appreciated.

Thank you,

Claire, Ned, Tim, John and all the #endsewagepollution volunteers