Clean up Cliffe Creek

Thames21 have teamed up with Cliffe Creek Community and Conservation Partnership to organise an urgently needed clean up at Cliffe Creek, an inlet of the Thames blighted by litter washed down river from London's suburbs on Saturday April 8th.

Cliffe Creek is next to Cliffe Pools RSPB reserve on the Hoo Peninsula, a 230 hectare mix of saline lagoons, freshwater pools, grassland, saltmarsh and scrub. The reserve attracts thousands of birds and is renowned as a site for wading birds, with massed flocks moving from the Thames Estuary onto the pools on winter high tides, a wide range of passage birds in autumn and spring, and breeding avocets, redshanks, lapwings and ringed plovers.

Cliffe Community and Conservation Partnership Officer, Carol Donaldson said: "The creek was once a major route for merchants whose trade brought prosperity to the area, smugglers too would have used the creek under the cover of darkness. In recent years, rubbish has accumulated here and we need as many volunteers as we can to return the area to how nature intended."

Thames21's River Programmes Coordinator Matthew Loveday said: "We're really pleased to join forces for a second year with Carol to clean up the creek. The majority of litter that ends up in Cliffe Creek was actually thrown or blown into the River Thames much further upstream. It's an example of the long-term impact that litter has on the environment when there is no statory duty on any organisation to remove litter from rivers or canals."

Event Details:

Helpers are asked to report to St Helen's Church, Cliffe at 2.00pm on Saturday 8th April. Transport to the bay and all litter picking equipment will be provided, help will be required until around 5.00pm, for further details contact Carol on 01634 222480.

For map click here

Ends
Media enquiries Carol Donaldson on 07963 949 805

Notes to Editors:

• The Cliffe Community and Conservation Partnership
  Since 2004, with funding from Medway Council and Medway and Swale Estuary Partnership, the RSPB has employed Carol on behalf of the Partnership to work in the communities of Cliffe, Cliffe Woods, Cooling and High Halstow to improve countryside access, interpret local history and encourage visitors to appreciate the importance of the area. Carol's work also compliments the RSPB's major project to create a flagship nature reserve at Cliffe Pools.
• Thames21 is an environmental charity working with communities to improve and maintain London’s rivers and canals. The charity mobilises thousands of volunteers every year to clean up waterside grot-spots, remove graffiti and improve wildlife habitats. Innovative community inclusion and education projects include Adopt-A-River and CanalKeeper and Riverkeeper Volunteers.
• Thames21 began working with communities and businesses to clean and green the River Thames in 1996 and now works on a range of projects across London’s 400 mile network of rivers and canals.
• There is no statutory duty on any organisation to remove litter from rivers and canals.