Hello river lovers,

Great news! Yesterday evening, Oxford City Council voted unanimously for bathing water status for the River Thames in Oxford!

This is a massive step forward in the campaign - THANK YOU so much for your support! Without those thousands of signatures, the councillors might not have listened to us. Other campaigns have taken years to get to this stage, it just shows how well-loved and well-used this beautiful stretch of river is.

There is still a ways to go yet... the DEFRA application is a lengthy process takes a year, so that means no monitoring of water quality until summer 2022. 

However, the council also called on Thames Water to provide real-time alerts of sewage overspills - the company actually have sensors which provide this data, and they could make it publicly available, but have chosen not to!

If you do one thing today, can you tweet @thameswater, tag them in a facebook post @thameswater or write an email to customer.feedback@ thameswater.co.uk asking that they provide real-time alerts?

Thank you again - we will be able to enjoy swimming, rowing, paddling, kayaking in the river without fear of sewage pollution.

Best wishes,

Claire and the #esp Thames team