I am very excited to now share the release of the save Windermere fundraiser and the campaign film. Please follow the links below to the respective site.
https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/save-windermere
For the breakdown of evidence that has been collected so far please visit
A quick summary of some of evidence obtained by the campaign so far includes:
61% Reduction in river fly species from above to below Far Sawrey wastewater treatment works in Wilfin Beck
44% reduction in river fly species from above to below Ambleside wastewater treatment works in the main river to flow into Windermere, the river Rothay
Illegal spilling at Near Sawrey wastewater treatment works in at least 2019 and 2021
Illegal spilling at Ambleside wastewater treatment works in at least 2018, 2019, 2021
Donations will be used to fund:
An independent monitoring programme to collect invaluable evidence which will underpin the campaign.
Enhanced scale and frequency of media, including films, produced to amplify the campaign and its core aims to an even wider demographic.
Incurred legal fees and other fees associated with ensuring polluters and pollution incidents are justly addressed, enabling the continuation of the campaign.
The updated campaign objectives are
1. To collect the evidence of damage and illegality - riverbed pollution, invertebrate deterioration and breaches of discharge permit(s)
2. To force the regulator to act to stop United Utilities illegal sewage discharges.
3. To forces United Utilities - at its own expense and not the bill payers' - to invest to provide the capacity in its sewage works and stop using Windermere and its rivers as a sewer.
4. To force United utilities to take ownership of all non main drains in the catchment as a result taking ownership of all 1900 private discharge points
Windermere Lake is not adaptable to the climate crisis. Warming temperatures, more flooding and more pressure on inadequate local infrastructure is going to create an algal bloom event so big that thousands of fish will wash up dead on the shore of the lake. Not enough has been done or is being done to address the fundamental issue: excessive phosphorus entering the lake from sewage discharges.
Just this summer we saw one of the biggest algal bloom event ever recorded on the lake, which encompassed its entire north basin. This is the warning of what is to come. This summer we were not put into drought measures, we had just enough water flowing through our rivers but what if next year we aren't as lucky? What if we see as little rainfall as the south of England? If this summer is anything to go by, the lake is doomed.
United Utilities are not taking the necessary actions required to address the excessive phosphorus that is being discharged from their assets. Instead, they sit within the Love Windermere partnership looking everywhere else apart from the urgent need for investment in their infrastructure. They fail to collect all data from their assets and prevent us from accessing their datasets, meaning we are unable to quantify the extent of their illegal and legal activity.
The Windermere situation is the epitome of the privatised water industry failing our freshwater. The most recent investment by United Utilities was between 2015-2020 in which they invested £40 million into the catchment, however, in that same period the company paid £1.6 billion in profits to their stakeholders. We are not seeing a proportional amount of investment to cope with the tourist industry as water treatment works are built to reflect the resident population. In addition, it is well known and documented that sites frequently spill illegally. When requesting this data, the information is often withheld by United Utilities without a valid exemption.
We cannot sit back and watch idly as Lake Windermere dies. The organisations, put in place to protect the lake, operate blindly and fail to hold polluters to account. We must, therefore, start collecting the evidence no-one else is willing to collect. YOU can help me to do this and together we can shine the spotlight on the polluter and begin to reverse the degradation of Lake Windermere.