Strandliners has held Love Our Rother events for the last three years, bringing together over 30 environmental organisations from across the region to show some love for the Rother. Unfortunately, due to the pollution events over the winter, the loss of a partner organisation and lack of capacity, the event originally scheduled for Valentine’s Day this year will not take place.
Thank you to everyone who has supported us at these events. So much has come from them. However, the love for our waterways continues through the Rother Community River Watch project, with groups monitoring water quality across the catchment. The aim of the project is to enable local groups of testers to produce community-owned results, with support from Strandliners, Rother Voluntary Action and the Environment Agency.
There is enough funding to support for this year, after which time additional funding will be necessary. By this time, we should have a data-rich picture of some of the pollutants in the rivers Brede, Tillingham and Rother over the seasons. This will be the basis for all further testing so that any future pollution incidents can be observed quickly and the source potentially identified.
Without a Love Our Rother event this February, we hope that we can celebrate the Rother’s waterways with a catchment-wide water testing event in the summer, perhaps with a riverside picnic.
The groups at present are able to cover Iden, Wittersham, Rye, Winchelsea Beach, Pett Level, Battle, Sedlescombe, Crowhurst and Combe Valley areas. If anyone would like to join the groups, please email info@Strandliners.org and we can pass on your details to the groups.
Image Credits: Strandliners .