10th Willesden Help Clear River Brent

On 29th February, 10th Willesden Scouts joined volunteers from Thames 21 to help clear up areas around the River Brent

The participants experienced the ‘four seasons in one day’. The event started with light rain, shortly after the sun was out. During the break a hail shower hit us, and we decided to call it a day. But the volunteers were so eager to stay that we waited a little longer, and the sun shone once again.

During the break we had a community consultation, suggestions included: more benches in the park, bins, tackle the litter problem in specific areas, footpath improvement, suggestions for each participant to bring one extra person next time, police patrol on evenings and weekends because of antisocial behaviour, play area, fishing in the river, and the river as a special amenity.

Scrub clearance and tree coppicing were carried out both on the river banks and around the pond.

Ponds can provide vital habitat for aquatic wildlife, they also make a large impact on the big environmental issues such as climate change and floods.

At Quainton Street Open Space the pond is a lovely feature that is currently overgrown by trees and bushes. As part of the restoration, we aim to have a mosaic of shady and sunny. The sunny section of the pond will have more abundance of water plants, and shade will keep the water cool.

 All the wooden material derived was stockpiled to be used on-site for subsequent river restoration.

The sound of laughter filled the air, I’m quite sure everyone loved being outside, in contact with nature. These responses have been overwhelming.

At 2.30pm we wrapped up to go, and the aftermath from the clean-up was: 40 full black bags of litter. A very peculiar item was found on the day too, a harpoon.