In January 2025, after a poll of our members, we changed our name from the Lower Char Community Project to
River Char Action Group

We work closely with: River Char Community Project; CROWD (Clean Rivers of West Dorset); Dorset National Landscape (see full details)​
Read our May 2025 Newsletter
Go here to download and read a copy of our report on pollution in the River Char (dated January 2025).
Or read the much shorter Summary report!
 Join us for a free CADDIS FLY workshop for Primary School age kids.  18th May, 2-4pm
Charmouth Youth Club
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The 2025 Charmouth Dragon River Festival will be on 31st May 2025 - can you help us?

We need people to help:
  • organise, join in and publicise the Festival (31st May 2025)
  • contribute paintings, photographs, stories, memories, songs, cakes
  • work on costumes, fancy dress and the dragon itself
  • liaise with local schools and organisations
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For our campaign to clean up the River Char, could you help:
  • act as River Guardians (walking and monitoring the river)
  • use iNaturalist to gather information about the River 
  • monitor mink on the river and, eventually, reintroduce water voles

​Sign up here to join our River Char Action Group or email us for more information or with any offers of help. Read about the last festival on our Dragon page.
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​We gratefully acknowledge funding and help from Dorset National Landscape.
Length-of-river water quality tests on the River Char
We work closely with Wessex Water, who have been running with us a series of regular water quality tests along the length of the River Char. They cover: 
  • Ammonia - an indicator of pollution from farmyard slurry
  • E. coli and Enterococci - good indicators of pollution that can be dangerous to human health for anyone swimming/playing in the river
  • Glyphosate - a widely used herbicide
  • Nitrate - an indicator of pollution from fertiliser
  • Phosphate - a good indicator of pollution from animal sources (livestock or human)
…as well as Mercury, Cypermethrin (an insecticide used widely on farms), forever chemicals, Nitrogen and others.
Go here to read a copy of our report on pollution in the River Char (dated January 2025).  
At the two Deep Cleans for Charmouth Beach in 2024, pioneering beach clean experts NURDLE removed a huge quantity nurdles and biobeads from the beach and river mouth. (Hard to count but probably well over 2 million.)
See NURDLE's video below.
Here are the Westcountry CSI test results for the River Char for 2023 - see the full pdf here

Imagine a river THAT's
​safe to swim and play in

The River Char Action Group was formed in early 2022 with the aim of learning about our river so we can clean it of pollution. We are building on work done by locals, experts and the people at the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre - and most especially on the research and writing of Philip Strange.

We work with Char Valley Parish Council, which has a similar project higher up the river. We also work closely with Wessex Water and the CROWD (Clean Rivers of West Dorset) group.

We're looking to:
  • find out where pollution comes from (run-off from the land, leaking septic tanks, sewage spills, etc)
  • measure pollution and water quality in the river regularly
  • find out what we can do to reduce sewage spills (working with Wessex Water to get residents to separate sewage and rain water in their homes, planting reedbeds, etc.)
  • learn how we can help protect local homes from flooding as summer storms and other extreme weather events become more common.
We have a campaign to get necessary improvements done quickly. ​See our Summary campaign. 

microplastics on our beach

Easter 2023, Dana Assinder took these photos of microplastics on our beach:
What we need more than anything is for the government to give the Environment Agency teeth. See this Nov. 2022 Financial Times article on how the UK Government has underfunded the agency that is designed to protect our rivers from pollution:
England’s rivers pay the price for hollowed-out Environment Agency ​
What to do if you see sewage in the river or in the sea at CHARMOUTH
1. Take photos and immediately call Wessex Water on 0345 600 4600. Give an exact location and description.
2. Follow up with an email to them at [email protected] (copied to [email protected])

If you spot sewage pollution in the River Lim or on the beaches at LYME REGIS
1. Take photos and immediately call South West Water on 0344 346 2020. Give an exact location and description.
2. Then follow up with an email to the River Lim Monitoring Group at [email protected])

Signs of sewage pollution include:  
toilet paper, wipes, faeces, condoms, sanitary products in a river or in the sea, on a riverbank or the beach ~ a river appearing cloudy or milky ~ grey feathery ‘sewage fungus’ on the bed of a river ~ dead or gasping fish ~ a noticeable sewage smell
[There are many reasons why foam appears in rivers and near the seashore. Some of these are completely natural. Do not make an emergency call about foam unless you have other evidence to suggest that it is caused by sewage.]

What we're doing

We're:
  • monitoring water quality in the river regularly (see photo below) - let us know if you want to help
  • working with Wessex Water to reduce sewage spills into the river
  • working with the community to create awareness of problems with the river and how we can resolve them
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Julie Leah and Mike Haines water monitoring ion the River Char (image: Judith Haines]

NEWS UPDATES

On 31st May 2025 we're organising the second Charmouth Dragon River Festival.
On 7th Feb 2025 we're running a community information evening at Wootton Fitzpaine Village Hall to report the results of our 2024 programme of river testing.
On 29th February 2024 we handed our MP and the Minister for Water and Rural Growth a list of our campaign aims.
 In January 2024, the Nurdle Organisation and a crowd of residents cleared up an amazing 1.2 million microplastic beads from our river mouth. We organised a similar clean-up took place in March 2024.
Here's a video of the Green Party's Baroness Jenny Jones's visit to Lyme Regis in Sept 2022 to learn more about pollution in our rivers.
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Image from www.nurdlenerd.co.uk

Nurdles and Biobeads

A quick look along Charmouth Beach will reveal a horrifying amount of plastic.
This ranges from bags and bottles to shards of degraded plastic as well as nurdles (the raw material of manufactured plastics) and biobeads (used in the sewage treatment plant above Lyme Regis - but not at the Charmouth Sewage Works).

Find out more on our plastics page.
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Image from Wikimedia

sewage spills

There's been a lot in the news about sewage spills, including those in and near Charmouth. We've had a tour of our Sewage Treatment Works and lots of talks with Wessex Water.
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We've prepared a summary page and a detailed report on how these spills happen locally, how often the happen and what we can do together to help address the problem.
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Sign up below if you'd like updates.
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Image from Wikimedia

Wildlife

A lot of the work going on further up the river is designed to record and support the wildlife that lives on and around the river.
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We are doing our bit with a year-round water quality monitoring programme, gathering sightings of birds and other wildlife (some, like mink, not so native or desirable) and celebrating the river's own wild life.

Sign up below if you'd like to help.
Sign up to join the River Char Action Group here. We'll send you our occasional newsletter with updates and ways to help.