Beckenham Place Park River Ravensbourne Volunteering Programme

The architect’s sketch showing the vision of the east side of Beckenham Place Park

The River Ravensbourne, a tributary of the River Thames, runs through the east of Beckenham Place Park in the London Borough of Lewisham (LBL). The River Ravensbourne can be a place of beauty, but like many London rivers it can suffer from many challenges, including road runoff pollution, plastic pollution and misconnections.

LBL is delivering a landscape-scale restoration in the east of Beckenham Place Park, including a complex of new nature ponds, wetlands and river restoration with the aims to:

  • reduce flood risk in the River Ravensbourne catchment
  • create a better river environment for people and wildlife
  • deliver wider public health and community benefits through nature-prescribing and volunteer programmes

Thames21 is working in partnership to deliver a community engagement volunteer programme of river and wetland enhancement activities, to enable and empower local individuals and communities to manage their blue-green spaces better.

The aim is to involve the local communities in the delivery and management of river restoration and training activities, working with volunteers in and alongside the River Ravensbourne throughout the works to improve the environment of the river corridor, woodlands and new pond habitats.

Volunteering

Do you live locally? Would you like to find out more about your River Ravensbourne and how we can work together to improve its health? Thames21 are offering a variety of opportunities from litter picking wades, practical conservation work in the river and riverbank planting to becoming a citizen scientist by helping with our monitoring plan throughout the improvement works and beyond.

Everyone is welcome.

Get to know your River Ravensbourne in Beckenham Place Park!

We’ll be hosting a range of activities in the river and along the riverbanks. When events are confirmed they will be advertised below so please check back here for updates or join our mailing list to receive links to our free river related events sent directly to your inbox.  Sign up by contacting Beckenham Place Park Community Engagement Officer, Catriona Ross, by email BPPRiver@thames21.org.uk.

Our wade and conservation sessions are across five-hours and you’re welcome to join for part or all of the session, whatever works for you, just let us know when booking. Unless we are doing specific conservation work, our volunteering sessions are family friendly and we adapt each session depending on the ages of booked participants, due to high water levels in some parts of the river. We provide adults and children with waders, gloves and tools required for the sessions.

You can book your free place by clicking on the link next to the event, which will be visible two weeks before the event date.

JUNE

  • Wednesday 26th June – 3 Rivers Clean Up wade 10.00 – 15.00. This event is now full.
  • Sunday 30th June – London Rivers Week wade & riverbank conservation 10.00 – 15.00. Please register your spot by clicking here: https://book.plinth.org.uk/e/Fr1F6tF3Jqth3y3Rmrc2

JULY

  • Sunday 21st July – Summer celebration river activities day 11.00 – 15.00

SEPTEMBER

  • Saturday 21st September – BPP’s Ravensbourne River Festival

Downham River Action Group

Get involved with other locals by following our River Action Group community on our new Instagram page  river_action_group_bpp. See what our volunteers are doing to celebrate and help improve our River Ravensbourne.

Training

We are continuing to offer local residents free NCFE accredited training on our flagship course Leading Action for Healthy Rivers which will qualify you to organise your own river events, empowering you to work with the local community to improve the River Ravensbourne. A huge thank you for eight volunteers who attended our first two-day course in May. We will be offering a second course later this summer.

If you would like to get involved with any of the above or have any questions please email or call Catriona at BPPriver@thames21.org.uk/ 077439 27796.

This programme is designed for the community, to engage the local public with the River Ravensbourne and not for corporates. If you are interested in a bespoke corporate volunteer day, please visit our website https://www.thames21.org.uk/get-involved-2/corporatevolunteering/

We would like to thank our partners for all their support. The improvements to the east side of Beckenham Place Park are supported by the Mayor of London through the Green and Resilient Spaces Fund.