After restoring the Alders Brook earlier this year, River Roding Trust volunteers were facing prosecution by the Environment Agency. But Trust chair Paul Powlesland will not stop what he considers vital work
Update: the Environment Agency has now dropped it’s plans for prosecution
Good news! After decades of ignoring rampant environmental crime on the Roding, the Environment Agency (EA) has finally decided to take action. Bad news! It’s not against Thames Water for illegally dumping billions of litres of sewage in the Roding, or the criminals who have dumped thousands of tonnes of rubbish on its banks, but against the River Roding Trust for… restoring a river without a permit!
In the April 2026 issue of the Wanstead Village Directory, I wrote about our biggest river restoration project to date, bringing 250m of river back to life on the Alders Brook (a tributary of the River Roding with its source within the City of London Cemetery). Over the course of 10 days, we removed hundreds of tonnes of silt, leaves and rubbish from the river. Dozens of amazing volunteers then sorted through the wet silt and removed the tonnes of rubbish it contained. As part of the work, we also opened up accessible points to the river, so you can now visit and walk along it. In short, we restored the Alders Brook as a rare and precious jewel.
Then, within a week of River Roding Trust volunteers completing this magnificent work, EA investigators had been down to the site and rattled off a letter threatening us with prosecution for doing the work without a permit. This is despite the fact the Trust had repeatedly asked the EA to do this vital work themselves, which they refused, and despite the fact they have also not investigated the huge, illegal sewage outlet on the Cran Brook a few hundred metres away.
The actions of the EA are nothing short of outrageous, and the River Roding Trust is calling for all threats of prosecution against us and our volunteers to be publicly withdrawn, and threats to destroy the pond and river channel we have created similarly withdrawn. The EA should instead use its prosecutorial powers against Thames Water to demand they produce a plan to fix all illegal sewage spills on the Roding by 2030, failing which they should prosecute every single illegal sewage spill to the full force of the law.
Whilst I am no longer shocked at the indifference of public bodies and local councils to the desperate plight of our rivers, it has genuinely surprised me that the EA thinks it is a good use of their time to prosecute volunteers for doing their job for them. I implore them to withdraw their prosecution threats and work with us instead. The Roding could genuinely be a test case in how government and river guardians can work together to protect and restore our rivers.
Only three things will stop me from continuing this important work. The first is for the EA to step in and do the work themselves. The second is to jail me. The third is to kill me. Your move, Environment Agency.
For more information and to support the River Roding Trust, visit wnstd.com/rrtvea
