Author: Anne Miller

Why are the Rhee and Cam so murky?

Introduction

On 2 December 2025 Mike Foley of Cam Valley Forum’s (CVF) Mike Foley presented a talk on river turbidity and its most probable causes at Newnham Croft Social and Sports Club, to an audience with a wide range of interests.  

The slides are available here. They have been edited to provide a little more of the details presented verbally at the talk, and this Blog accompanies the slides from the talk. (It is illustrated with a few of the slides, but we recommend you look at the full set of slides too)

This talk is an update on the reports on turbidity published 31 Dec 2022 and 31 March 2025.

The investigations into turbidity were separate from CVF’s monitoring along the Cam and Rhee of faecal indicator bacteria from 2021 which focused on trying to locate the main sources of the organisms. We now know these enter the river continually in fairly high numbers in the discharged, treated effluent at Haslingfield sewage treatment works, and from other locations.

If you have no time to read further, Mike’s conclusion is that soil in suspension is the most probably reason for the turbidity, and downstream of Wendy into Cambridge, turbidity is further exacerbated by the presence and activities of the non-native, invasive American Signal Crayfish, now present in large numbers.  The clayey nature of the soil type along the Rhee is one important factor in this river being far more turbid than others in the Cam Catchment.   We suspected this all along, but for reasons that will unfold, we thought it was necessary to investigate other causes. Past dredging is implicated.

The history

Turbidity is the formal name for murkiness or cloudiness of water.  A former CVF committee member and angler Alan Coulson noted in 2015 that something wasn’t right with the Cam.  He photographed the Cam at Hauxton Junction where the Essex Cam, also known as the Granta, joins with the Rhee.  The Rhee was very murky whereas the Essex Cam / Granta seemed clear. 

In early 2022 while Mike was sampling for faecal bacteria and nutrient levels, he realised that lowering the shiny rake vertically into the water was a simple way to measure “depth to invisibility” (DTI).  In other words, he could measure how far down he needed to lower the rake until the head became just invisible.  He enthusiastically built up a dataset of DTI from various sites over the year and into 2023.   When there were sufficient readings from the Byron’s Pool part of the Cam (actually Brasley Bridge) he sorted the results according to low flow and higher flow conditions.   Spookily, at low flows, i.e. low-summer flows, turbidity increased as flow decreased.  This did not suggest a specific cause but was a good point to start considering options.

Soon, Mike was using a Secchi tube, extended to 165cm length to capture low turbidity events.  He also occasionally used the nephelometer Hanna HI-93703 and the Hanna Multiprobe HI-98594, loaned from Hobson’s Conduit Trust, with thanks to Dr Steve Boreham for maintaining their calibrations.

How turbid are the Rhee and Cam?

Several monitoring excursions in 2025 have clearly shown that turbidity can reach very high levels in the upper Rhee, peaking around Whitegates Bridge/ Potton to Guilden Morden road/Tadlow (94 FNU at Tadlow on 20 May 2025). One the same day, Byron’s Pool’s reading was 25 FNU, but still obviously turbid.  Turbidity in summer can be high at further sites down to the Haslingfield-Harston road bridge, slightly lower at Byron’s Pool, lower still at Sheep’s Green and very low at Clayhithe.

Local farmers around Tadlow recall the Rhee was clear only a few years ago. Photographs taken in October 2012 near Harston reveal the Rhee appeared clear then, in contrast to its high turbidity of the past few years

Phosphate / sewage pollution

In 2022, WASP (Windrush against Sewage Pollution) reported,  “One common feature of the rivers suffering turbidity issues is sewage pollution and a potential link with high phosphate inputs from STWs.”  Could these be a major cause of our turbidity?  The answer seems to be no. 

For instance, the highest turbidity in 2025 was measured along the Rhee near Tadlow where CVF sampling showed that stretch had the lowest phosphate (<0.084 mg/l) of the entire river. Furthermore, CVF monitoring of the Rhee and Cam for phosphate in 2021/2022 from Harston showed no decrease in concentration at the lowest part of the Cam we monitored – Clayhithe (mean of three samples, 0.442 mg/l orthophosphate-P).  Yet Clayhithe had the clearest water of the entire Cam.

There exists a particulate whitish chemical called “Struvite” which contains phosphate.  This forms when there are equi-molar amounts of ammonium, magnesium and phosphate present – MgNH4PO4.6H20 – and it can form at sewage works.   Routinely Mike sampled effluent at several works and using either a Secchi tube or nephelometer, and if struvite was present in sufficient amounts it would show up.  One sampling at Haslingfield STW on 30 April 2025 coincided with a storm overflow, and resulted in the following turbidity readings (FNU):  (a) treatment using filtration beds, 5.15.  (b) treatment using the activated sludge tank, 1.07.  (3) pure storm overflow from storm tanks, 7.45.  These readings show that the effluent turbidity so far too low to be a contributor, on that occasion.  Furthermore, Mike has compiled readings that show effluent at other works can be remarkably clear, though there is usually some small amounts of natural brown particulate matter present, called “floc”, that is part of the treatment process.  For instance, Melbourn and Linton STW effluent can be so clear that after filling the entire 165cm long Secchi tube with effluent the Secchi disk at the base of the tube is still visible.  

Thus, treated sewage (also the storm overflow above) at the numerous Anglian Water sewage works discharging into the Rhee, Cam or tributaries appear not to contain sufficient particulates to contribute to high river turbidity.    

Nor do measurements of the effluent reveal levels of bacteria high enough to cause a turbid  “soup”.   Also, it’s not in the nature of naturally occurring aquatic true bacteria in a flowing river to form soups sufficiently turbid to explain what we have been seeing.  

Algal blooms

Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) can create turbidity – this has occurred recently at Todd’s Pit at Milton Country Park – but high power microscopical examination of Rhee water show no cyanobacteria in large numbers.

In recognition that the Cam sometimes appears green, a Turner Aquafluor detector of green algal Chlorophyll a was loaned in 2024 from the Zoology Department, Cambridge University.  Samples from sites on the Rhee and Cam where the water was grey-brown were found to have zero amounts of Chlor a. No river samples were green.

Suspended soil

Soil appears to be the culprit.  It cannot be coincidental that the colour of the arable soils in the upper Rhee  and the Rhee banks have some greyish hue in them that matches the colour of the river water in the summer.  Mike has passed on samples to Dr Steve Boreham of WildReach.co.uk who confirms that they contain soil.  However, it is not all soil – there is also some organic matter and particulate calcium carbonate.

It seems that only small amounts of soil are needed to create turbid conditions.  It could be soil resuspended from the river bed, etched out of the bank, or newly arrived via arable ditchworks or directly from fields into the river.   The puzzle still to solve is how turbidity in the upper Rhee persists during periods of dry conditions when ditches are dry and there is no runoff from fields. It appears that only small amounts of soil released into the water are needed to make the river turbid. 

It seems reasonable to ponder that suspension of extremely fine clay into the water at one point will not persist too far downstream.  Perhaps it is only 50m, depending of soil particle size. But if uplift is happening at one point, it will also be happening a little further downstream, but from this second point the soil will be carried a little further on, and so on.

A controversial issue is the dredging of the Rhee to reduce the risk of overtopping during high winter rainfall.  Dredging may expose fresh layers of clay that can lift more easily into the water.

American Signal Crayfish

In 2023, Mike saw persistent high turbidity in the Cam during the summer when for weeks there was no appreciable rainfall to drive soil from ditches or arable fields into the river.  The tributary Bourn Brook was actually fairly clear compared to the Cam and thus not a major contributor.  Some Chalk streams were slightly turbid but not enough to increase turbidity of the Rhee and Cam.  In fact, they would be diluting the turbidity

The simple answer to turbidity in dry spells seems to be American Signal Crayfish.  This invasive crayfish has been shown markedly to increase turbidity.  Populations can be large: over 1600 crayfish of all sizes and age were taken out of a Yorkshire beck headwater just from a 10m stretch.  Largely active nocturnally they stir up bed sediment while fighting and feeding, and when capturing and eating juveniles, and tunnel into the bank up to 200cm depth (mostly up to 60cm on the fish pass at Byron’s Pool).  The excavations must allow continuous suspension of soil, whilst mature tunnels cause erosion, sometime causing bank collapse.

The Environmental Agency has concluded that that the turbidity of both the Windrush and parts of the Rhee involves the presence of American Signal Crayfish.

Mike has noted increasing turbidity in the Granta and the Essex Cam /Granta at Hauxton Mill. Crayfish are populating more stretches of our rivers (and are common at Hauxton Mill) and as tagging has shown that they can march 100m upstream overnight, he foresees invasion forces moving steadily towards the headwaters.  Numbers may be very low at the front of the invasion – however, it has been proposed that only one female and one male need to be present in stretch of 200m if the stream is 5m wide to be the Minimum Viable Population Density, usually undetectable.  Over future years we will see more colonisation, and probably therefore even higher turbidity levels where the geological base of the soil in that stretch is of the right type to be suspended.

Conclusions

  • No evidence that the prolonged turbidity is caused by algal blooms
  • Not obviously sewage works related
  • Not a direct phosphate effect
  • Upper Rhee – probably soil alone
  • Lower Rhee and Cam – soil + American Signal Crayfish
  • The geological soil type seems pivotal in determining how turbid the water becomes from soil suspension.
  • Local farmer perceptions reveal the upper Rhee was not nearly so turbid just a few years ago. Some light dredging in the upper Rhee may be part of the cause.

Actions

  • Reduce soil runoff from arable fields into ditches or direct into the rivers
  • Discontinue any dredging of the rivers (when possible)
  • Reinforce bank sides
  • Need for scientists to devise a control measure for the crayfish
  • Trapping of crayfish to reduce populations needs to be thorough and not just removal of adults.  A near-impossible task on large stretches of the Rhee and Cam.
  • Testing of the upper Rhee with environmental-DNA specific to American Signal Crayfish to determine how much of the Rhee around Tadlow it has colonised.

Forthcoming talk: Why is the River Cam so murky?

Tuesday 2nd Dec, 6pm Newnham Sports and Social Club, Hardwick Street CB3 9JA

Dr Mike Foley of Cam Valley Forum, has been investigating the water quality of the River Cam for many years. He has been exploring the river from the chalkstream spring head at Ashwell, down to the River Cam at Clayhithe… Along the way, he has been investigating sewage works effluent, phosphates, river flow, the local geology and the surprising impact of the invasive American Signal Crayfish.

He will share the result of his work, attempting to answer questions such as “Why is the river so murky?” “Is aquatic wildlife at risk?” “Is it safe to bathe?” “Can we clean it up?”

The talk is 6pm-7pm at Newnham Sports and Social Club, Hardwick Street CB3 9JA, but do stay for a chat or a drink afterwards.

A Collaborative Restoration Plan for the Cam

Comment from Cam Valley Forum on the announcement of the government funding (£179,602.54 from the Water Restoration Fund) for the project “A Collaborative Restoration Plan for the Cam”

Cam Valley Forum welcomes any funding for work to improve the health of the Cam and its tributaries, and congratulates the Wildlife Trust BCN on being awarded these funds.  This project is one of 51 across England that have been awarded grants by the Water Restoration Fund (WRF). 

The Collaborative Restoration Plan for the Cam consists of three main elements.

  • A Catchment officer for the the Cam Catchment Partnership to create a catchment plan
  • Catchment Habitat Opportunity Mapping
  • A Sediment Study, covering the whole of the Cam, Rhee and Granta

All three elements are led by the Wildlife Trust BCN (although parts of the project are being delivered by other partners, who are getting paid by the Water Restoration Fund via Wildlife Trust). Cam Valley Forum is a founder member of the Cam Catchment Partnership. 

The Water Restoration Fundmoney has permitted the appointment of a short-term catchment officer for the Cam Catchment Partnership, who is creating a catchment plan to be published in spring 2026.  It also includes two catchment-wide projects, namely Catchment Habitat Opportunity Mapping and a Sediment Study.  The mapping will be useful in discussions with landowners and will tie in with the Local Nature Recovery Strategy.  The Sediment Study will help us understand where sediment is coming into rivers and how it moves within the catchment, so we can find the best ways to address the excessive amounts of sediment in our rivers.  There are also some smaller projects, all of which support the catchment partnership’s aim to empower local people and to ensure that local knowledge informs water resource and river restoration strategy.

About the Water Restoration Fund

However, our rivers need more.  Cam Valley Forum, with the Wildlife Trust, has concerns about the governments approach to the Water Restoration Fund.  It has been created from the fines imposed on the water companies for the pollution they have caused.  Ideally, the water companies should be preventing such pollution occurring in the first place but, if it does happen, they should indeed be paying for the clean-up.  In the period 2020 – 2025, these fines amounted to some £850m – a shocking figure in itself.  But the £10M being made available in this current round of the Water Restoration Fund is a tiny proportion of that. The grant for the river Cam is helpful, but insufficient to ensure that the activities initiated can remain sustainable.  A larger pot (possibly £100M) is promised in the next round of the Water Restoration Fund.  However, Cam Valley Forum feels that the government is showing an insufficient sense of urgency to the problems facing our rivers and chalk streams.

Balsam Pulling working parties in Newnham

Next working Party: Tuesday 30th September 2:30-4:30 Do register here if you’d like to help save Paradise Local Nature Reserve from infestation with the invasive plant, Himalayan Balsam.

We are working in a lovely, very wild meadow in Newnham to which there’s no public access. The elderly “license owner” is losing the battle with the invading Himalayan Balsam, and very much welcomes our help. If allowed to continue spreading, this outgrowth will threaten Paradise Nature Reserve, just downstream

Nell, with one of the “last” Himalayan Balsam plants

A very useful team joined us in small working party on Wedneday 24 Sept to pull up late flowering Himalayan Balsam plants from a private field beside the Cam in Newnham, Cambridge. This outgrowth is threatening Paradise Nature Reserve. We made great progress completely clearing over half the visible infestation in two hours, before the need for tea and cake became overwhelming.

We’re having another working party on Tuesday 30th Sept 2:30-4:30, attempting to finish the job. Do register here if you’d like to help.

If Himalayan Balsam is left, it grows into massive plants, and spreads rapidly, completely overwhelming everything else.

Large Himalayan Balsam plants beside Byron’s Pool

Pennywort remerges in Fen Ditton

A few days ago, a local resident alerted us to an outgrowth of the invasive weed, Floating Pennywort in the ditch from Fen Ditton to the main river.

With permission from the land owners, we went in with a canoe and removed 25-50kg, putting it in the nettles alongside the meadow, where it can dry and die.

Some years ago, this ditch was completely choked with pennywort….

Pennywort in Fen Ditton Ditch Autumn 2018

…and we cleared it with the help of several working parties.

Sentec orking Party April 2019

But its always important to keep an eye out for regrowth, so 6 months later it was back again….

Regrowth by November 2019

After a few sessions, we got it clear.

However, but its always possible to have missed a little bit, or for new strands to wash in from further upstream. Autumn is the key time to see it, so do keep an eye out for Floating Pennywort in your local rivers and ditches. Please do clear it out if you can safely do so. Once removed, just put it somewhere dry to die, where it won’t blow back into the river. Then we can eradicate this menace from the lower stretch of the River Cam (as we’ve done in the upper Cam)

You can read more about our project to eradicate Floating Pennywort, and see our various advice sheets here

Press release: Fund the locks

Wealthy colleges, businesses and residents must help to fund repair of the Baits Bite and Jesus Green Locks

As widely publicised both locally and nationally, both Jesus and Bait’s Bite locks are affected by major structural degradation.  The locks have been closed to navigation since May 2024.  Temporary stabilisation works are due to start at Bait’s Bite, and further surveys of Jesus Lock are necessary to assess the cost of repair.  But, as Sunday’s protest, organised by the FUND BRITAIN’S WATERWAYS national campaign which is helping to secure the future of Britain’s inland rivers and canals, made abundantly clear, the situation is urgent. 

Boats unable to pass through Baits Bite Lock

Stephen Tomkins of the Cam Valley Forum (CVF) – an organisation dedicated since 2001 to the protection of the Cam and its environment – says:

“With the current emphasis on restoration of chalk streams, many of us would probably prefer a free-flowing river, with a gravel bottom and lush aquatic plant growth, as in the cathedral city of Salisbury.  But we are faced with reality. It is often forgotten that Cambridge was once a key inland port, providing access to the North Sea and the Continent via the Cam, Ouse and Wash, and allowing the transport of goods inland, including to the largest medieval fair in Europe on Stourbridge Common”.  

The drainage of the fens and the construction of Denver Sluice on the River Great Ouse changed this, reducing river levels as tidal waters were excluded from the Ouse. By the end of the 17th century, both the university and the Corporation of Cambridge were complaining loudly about this.  One result was that in 1702, the Conservators of the River Cam were set up under an Act of Parliament to regulate and maintain the river for navigation, which led to the introduction of locks and other infrastructure to help navigation.

With the arrival of the railway, and the development of the road network, the role of the Cam for transporting goods declined.  But the economic importance of the Cam to city life has remained.  If the Jesus and Baits Bite locks were to fail, the water levels would fall dramatically and fluctuate, in periods of low flow probably providing only a muddy, and at worst, fetid trickle.  Punting and rowing would be impossible, the foundations of college walls would be exposed, and the once iconic views would no longer attract selfie-taking tourists.

The root of the problem is that the Conservators, who remain responsible for maintenance of the river, including the stretch between the two locks, has for many years not had the resources it needs.  It has no financial support from the City Council, colleges, or University.  It depends on its own capital savings and the annual fees paid to it by the owners of river craft, in particular commercial punting. As Clive Brown, a former Conservator states: “The Conservators have suffered for many years from underfunding. The cost of maintaining the river for navigation has to a major extent fallen on those who register their boats, particularly the punting industry.  It is high time that the University, and the wider population who benefit from the river, start to bear some of the costs, either directly or through Council subsidies”.

The City Council is offering ‘support’ of various kinds, but CVF feels that much more immediate action is needed.  Anne Miller, co-chair of CVF says: “We are deeply disappointed that a city like Cambridge, with some vastly wealthy colleges, global technology companies that generate over £50bn of turnover per year, and millionaire residents, cannot provide the funding needed.  The £1.5 million needed for the temporary stabilisation work for each lock island, and the estimated £10-15 million needed for the ultimate replacement of each lock can surely be found.”

As CVF’s River Manifesto[1] puts it: “Are we too busy lecturing other people around the world about ‘saving rain forests’ when our own river is not what it could be?  The River Cam, in this University City of world standing, should surely be an example to the world of achieving sustainable development”. 

Those who benefit from the Cam, whether directly or indirectly, must dig into their pockets and contribute to its protection.

[1] https://camvalleyforum.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/The-River-Cam-Manifesto-final2.pdf

Time for a hosepipe ban?

Time for a hosepipe ban? Hot weather puts water supplies under pressure

Cam Valley Forum (CVF) is once again calling on Cambridge Water to implement a hosepipe ban this summer.  Known as a ‘temporary use ban’ or TUB, such a temporary restriction on water use is a vitally important tool to reduce demand when supplies are low.  With demand increasing by 30% already in some regions since the heat wave began, urgent action is needed.

A TUB applies to hosepipes used for watering gardens, washing your car or boat, filling domestic swimming and paddling pools and filling or maintaining ponds and ornamental fountains.  Michael Goodhart. who leads CVF’s Water Conservation Group, says “Most of these activities can be done using recycled water, from water butts and general household use or, if from a tap, much more economically using a bucket or watering can. Hosepipes can use up to 1,000 litres an hour – a similar quantity that a family of four uses in two days.”

A national survey[1] in the 2022 drought showed that 76% of people thought implementing a hosepipe ban when it is hot, dry and sunny is justifiable. TUBs work by leaving more water in the environment, which is good for streams, rivers and wildlife, and in the groundwater which means supplies last longer.  TUBs also play a key role in helping people understand that water is scarce and that we need to be much more careful with it. The water that flows out of Cambridgeshire’s taps comes from the upstream chalk aquifer.  In hot summer months, with high levels of abstraction, the water-table drops and the flow in our chalk springs reduces and even stops, with devastating consequences to the environment.  Every time we turn on a tap or flush a toilet we contribute to this problem. 

Only water companies can make the decision on introducing TUBs, but Cambridge Water is still unwilling to do this, as they made clear to CVF in their annual meeting with the group in May. CVF has been actively engaging with Cambridge Water for several years on this issue[2].  The water company agrees that the triggers for introducing a TUB need re-appraisal, and say that their next Drought Plan will represent a ‘step change’ in how they will address the all too frequent drought periods.  However, this will not be published until 2027.

The company has not put a hosepipe ban in place since 1991-92 – not so much a reflection of the water availability in the region, as to the reluctance of the company to take the action needed. Instead, this year it has issued advice on its website and to those customers who have signed up to receive the company’s updates.  The advice is good – avoid hosepipe use, water plants early in the morning or evening to limit water evaporation, leave lawns even if they go brown as they will recover when it next rains, and take shorter showers.  But how many people will see this?

CVF supports the Environment Agency (EA) which this month issued urgent national advice[3] to all the water companies in England for more immediate action to address future water shortages.  The EA is calling on the companies to make greater effort to reduce demand, including through more hosepipe bans, whilst also emphasising that the public will need to play a role.

Sue Wells, co-chair of CVF, says “Keeping our plants and gardens alive in hot weather is essential – we need them for our physical and mental health.  But we must value water properly, and be more imaginative in how we use and manage it. We can all reduce the amount we use: turning on taps only enough and for as long as necessary for hand and teeth washing, or watering plants carefully and not the ground and weeds around them.  At all costs, we must avoid the situation in the 2022 drought, when parts of the City’s precious chalk streams dried up.”

[1] https://database.waterwise.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/Taking-the-publics-pulse-on-hosepipe-bans-3.pdf

[2] https://camvalleyforum.uk/cambridge-water-reject-plea-for-a-hosepipe-ban/

[3]https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/684fe36e4734883ca9f79e49/2025_EA_National_Framework_Water_Resources_-_summary_document.pdf

Punt and Paddleout 17 May 2025

Over 100 people punted and paddled out in Cambridge on the River Cam, from the Mill Pond to Kings College Backs, to demand an end to sewage pollution.

A selection of the photos and videos from the protest are available here.

Over 100 people and over 25 water craft, including 11 punts, participated in the initial rally at the Mill pond.

The flotilla then punted and paddled to Kings College backs, accompanied by singers…. The song “Anglian Water: Clean it up” was specially composed by Rowena Whitehead

The flotilla went on and on….

The 11 punts carried the “Chalk Dream” hangings. These were created by the charity Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination with local children and their communities.

On arrival at Kings College Backs, Michael Goodhart said a few words about the 400 year history of swimming on the Cam, then actor and director Chris Hudson, read the poem “Waterbodies” by poet Kaddy Benyon from a punt. Kaddy says “This is a found poem produced by erasing some of the foreword to Anglian Water’s Pollution Incident Plan 2020-2025 by the CEO of Anglian Water“

Introducing the event, Anne Miller, co-chair of Cam Valley Forum said

“Over 100 people and around 25 water craft, including 11 punts are gathered here in Cambridge, along with thousands of people who are gathering by their rivers and seas today, from Cornwall to Scotland, to show that we want an end to sewage pollution on our waters.

Water companies, and Anglian Water is no exception, are continuing to dump untreated and minimally treated sewage straight into our waterways, polluting our rivers and seas, putting human health at risk and destroying vital ecosystems that support life on earth.

There are now signs up at Sheep’s Green, just upstream of here, saying “bathing is not advised” because last year the river was so polluted with bacteria from poo.

We know that much of this pollution is coming from Haslingfield Sewage works, just 5km upstream.   This takes sewage from 13,000 people in the upstream villages, but it is old and overloaded.   Last year, it was overflowing for 1/3rd of the time.  The sewage pumping stations in the villages overflow when it rains. The big, pressurised pipes, which take the raw sewage from the villages to the sewage works keep bursting. And even when the sewage works is working “well” its 10 times worse at treating the sewage than the main Cambridge one. 

But it’s not just the Water Companies.

While they continued to pollute and pay huge dividends to their shareholders and bonuses to their CEOs, the Environment Agency has been steadily cut to the bone. For 30 years, we’ve had a regulatory system that’s completely dysfunctional.

Far from forcing water companies to make the investments needed to keep our rivers healthy, the system discourages investment.  Instead, politicians told Ofwat to prioritise lower bills while letting polluters profit. But now we’re waking up. We are paying the price. People are getting sick.

The system is crazy. Here in Cambridge, we, Cam Valley Forum, had to jump through the hoops to get Bathing Water Designation because that was the only way to get the regulators to both permit, and require, Anglian Water to invest and improve the upstream sewage treatment.  They tell us we should now see a significant improvement, but it’s going to take 5 years…..  That feels like a long time to wait, for something we should have had already. So we want Haslingfield fixed fast. 

But the government is promising reform. A big consultation has just finished, and they will be announcing changes to the regulatory system soon.  But we know there will be industry lobbyists resisting change.   That is why we’re protesting today, to show government that we want them to be bold

We want a regulatory system that forces water companies to invest, and takes account of the needs of all water users and the wider environment, not just swimmers.

We want to be able to swim, paddle, kayak, row and punt, without the fear of getting sick.”

The Cambridge protest was organised by Cam Valley Forum, Cambridge Canoe Club, and Cambridge Curiosity and Imagination. We’re grateful for the help of lots of other volunteers, the artistic creators of the many different placards and props, as well as Scudamores for the punts.

It was one of around 50 protests round the UK on 17 May 2025, organised by Surfers Against Sewage demanding to #endsewagepollution

Our protest was the lead story on ITV Anglia news on Sunday 18 May

Join us for “Punt and Paddle out” protest. Saturday 17 May

Do join us calling for an end to Sewage Pollution and the transformation of our water industy, in our “Punt and Paddle out” protest on the College backs, Saturday 17 May 10:30-11:30am.

Details and booking here

We will meet at the Mill Pond, CB3 9EU, then punt and paddle along the backs to Kings College Cambridge.  This is part of a national day of protests organised by Surfers Against Sewage. 

Do come with placards, art works and water craft or book your place on one of 4 free punts provided by Scudamores. They are also offering a discounted rate for participants to hire additional punts.  Well behaved children welcome, if accompanied by a responsible adult.

BOOK HERE

By booking you’ll get a reminder a few days before, notification if we need to cancel because of bad weather and a ticket that allows you to get the discount from Scudamores and/or loan of a buoyancy aid (if required)

Do pass the word to anyone interested.