350 signatures!

Folks,

We have just reached 350 signatures, which means we are just 16 short of our next goal and organic growth is back. The six-month shutdown of Thames River Boats between Hampton Court and Westminster will still inevitably occur this winter 2026/27, however  in the meantime we can upgrade the Pier at Hampton Court Landing Stage and hope for winter river services by the 2030s, and we can urge the Environment Agency to relook at maintenance scheduling times to avoid harming tourism at the peak Christmas season and it is a NO BRAINER to have direct river services between Hampton Court (with the ice rink) and Kew Gardens during Christmas at Kew.

We Brits always lag behind with infrastructure, despite the Channel Tunnel opening in 1994, construction of the then-new high speed rail link did not start until October 1998, and the first section did not open until 2003, five years later. This meant the Eurostar trains had to be a "low speed train" and travel at roughly 70mph between London Waterloo and the Channel Tunnel, with Eurostar trains taking a WHOLE HOUR just to reach Ashford International after leaving Waterloo before the high speed line was built.

I am using this example to argue that infrastructure in the UK is pretty poor and British trains are known for being bad, its the same with winter services on the upper tidal and non-tidal Thames.

Despite having to close the petition several times throughout 2026 due to running low on promotion funds (due to my personal lack of social media accounts to blast my links) and focusing on my other concurrent campaigns, 350 signatures is a good start and this is only my third ever campaign on the platform to reach this milestone, after another one of my concurrent campaigns reached this milestone back in May.

Will post another update when I have more news!