Campaign

Main image: Dana Assinder

Watch our film 'River Char Voices' launched at our Community Event in Charmouth Wednesday 7th August.

Lower Char Community Project CAMPAIGN 2024

1. River Water Campaign – to clean up our river…
We are call on Wessex Water to:

Take urgent action to stop all sewage discharges at Newlands Bridge (recently 8-12 per year) [UPDATE: Wessex Water says it will do this as a priority]
Work with Newlands Holiday Park and houses on Stonebarrow Lane to • seal any defective drains and • stop rainwater from roofs, roads and hard standing entering the sewer network. [UPDATE: Wessex Water has sent engineers to Newlands to discuss this.]
Install 6mm screens at Newlands Bridge – as a temporary measure. [UPDATE: Wessex Water installed them in January 2024]

We call on the Environment Agency to:

Start monitoring water quality again at the mouth of the River Char. [UPDATE: On 29th Feb 2024 we explained to Robbie Moore, the Government Minister for Water and Rural Growth, our campaign on this issue. He took away a written copy.]

Cut discharges of untreated sewage into the sea to less than 10 per year and 3 per bathing season. [These happen about 70 times a year into the sea, with no pollution alert required.] [UPDATE: Wessex Water says it has included this in its 2025-30 5-year plan]

We call on the Environment Agency to:

Enforce the requirement for no storm discharges at Newlands Bridge
Extend its definition of ‘Bathing season’ beyond May-Sept and reclassify discharges from the Long Sea Outfall as “high priority”.

We work with Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre to organise beach clean-up events

In Spring 2024, we coordinated two major interventions by the Nurdle Organisation to use purpose-built machinery to clean up the plastic biobeads and nurdles, which are littering Charmouth Beach and river mouth. See details here
We supporting Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre's beach clean events, where humans remove larger plastics and other litter from the beach.

3. Other Sea and River Issues – we will also campaign on 3 issues:

Climate-led Sea Level Rise: we will press for full information on Wessex Water’s strategy.
Sewage Spills: we are working with Wessex Water to get complete, accurate, real-time data.
Community Projects: we will seek funding to help residents use water butts and other water-saving techniques to reduce the amount of rainwater entering the combined sewer.