The Friends of the River Roding’s Wanstead and Woodford local group are on a mission to restore the river and its tributaries, one bag of rubbish and one forgotten stream at a time. Derek Seume reports
In late winter and early spring, river guardians such as the Friends of the River Roding can really get stuck into clearing up our blue spaces. Over the last few weeks, we have been hard at work, taking advantage of the seasonally reduced undergrowth before the nesting season begins.
In the Woodford and Wanstead area, we have been litter picking like never before, in particular, targeting the area around Charlie Brown’s Roundabout, which suffers from rubbish being thrown out of car windows from the flyovers overhead. This either gradually degrades the soil or blows around until it finally makes its way into the Roding, down to the Thames and ultimately out into our oceans. Our lovely little corner of the world here in northeast London is but a tiny part of a far wider ecology.
In our first four litter-picking sessions of 2026, we extracted some 114 bags of rubbish, but we are literally only scraping the surface. It will take several more sessions to clear the area even superficially, but sadly, the reality is there are no doubt several further layers of rubbish beneath the soil in places. Realistically, we can’t get to all of that – and indeed we must tread carefully so as not to disturb the species that have made their homes among our mess – but at the very least, we are striving to improve the aesthetics of the local area. If the eyesore is allowed to fester, so too does the impression that it’s acceptable to treat our green and blue spaces as one big rubbish dump. Litter begets litter.
Further south, between the river and Roding Lane South, we recently discovered a forgotten stream, hidden deep within woodland. Its source is unknown (we presume there is a spring somewhere that has been covered by a road or housing), but it meanders a short way through the woods towards the main river itself.
Our volunteers cleared the choked stream of rubbish and silt, dug a couple of pools to improve its flow dynamics and cut back brambles and ivy to allow more light into the water. Once we were satisfied we had brought the tributary back to life, we continued picking up litter around its vicinity, finishing the day with another 80 bags of rubbish. The stream – which we’ve unimaginatively named Redbridge Stream for want of an official title – already looks much healthier, but we will revisit it over the coming months and years to see how it develops and supports native species to thrive.
If you feel inspired to get involved and help us in our mission to restore the River Roding and its tributaries, please get in touch for information on future volunteer days and other ways you can contribute.
For more information on the Friends of the River Roding, visit swvg.co.uk/fotrr or email river.roding@gmail.com
