Beckenham Place Park River Ravensbourne Volunteering Programme

The architect’s sketch showing the vision of the east side of Beckenham Place Park

The River Ravensbourne, a tributary of the River Thames, runs through the east of Beckenham Place Park in the London Borough of Lewisham (LBL). The River Ravensbourne can be a place of beauty, but like many London rivers it can suffer from many challenges, including road runoff pollution, plastic pollution and misconnections.

LBL is delivering a landscape-scale restoration in the east of Beckenham Place Park, including a complex of new nature ponds, wetlands and river restoration with the aims to:

  • reduce flood risk in the River Ravensbourne catchment
  • create a better river environment for people and wildlife
  • deliver wider public health and community benefits through nature-prescribing and volunteer programmes

Thames21 is working in partnership to deliver a community engagement volunteer programme of river and wetland enhancement activities, to enable and empower local individuals and communities to manage their blue-green spaces better.

The aim is to involve the local communities in the delivery and management of river restoration and training activities, working with volunteers in and alongside the River Ravensbourne throughout the works to improve the environment of the river corridor, woodlands and new pond habitats.

Volunteering

Do you live locally? Would you like to find out more about your River Ravensbourne and how we can work together to improve its health? Thames21 are offering a variety of opportunities from litter picking wades, practical conservation work in the river and riverbank planting to becoming a citizen scientist by helping with our monitoring plan throughout the improvement works and beyond.

Everyone is welcome.

We’re planning a range of activities between now and September for our volunteering programme and once confirmed they’ll be published on this page. In the meantime, sign up to our mailing list to be the first to know about river and riverbank events by emailing Catriona Ross, Beckenham Place Park Engagement Officer, at BPPRiver@thames21.org.uk.

Training and Downham River Action Group

We are offering local residents free NCFE accredited training on our flagship course Leading Action for Healthy Rivers which will qualify you to organise your own river events, empowering you to work with the local community to continue improving the River Ravensbourne. The first two-day course takes place Saturday 18th & Sunday 19th May and if you’re interested please click here to find out more and to book on.

Become a member of our Downham River Action Group to help look after your river with other locals.

Join us over on our new Instagram page river_action_group_bpp.

If you would like to get involved with any of the above or have any questions please email or call Catriona at BPPriver@thames21.org.uk/ 077439 27796.

We would like to thank our partners for all their support. The improvements to the east side of Beckenham Place Park are supported by the Mayor of London through the Green and Resilient Spaces Fund.