“Heroic community groups such as the Quaggy Waterways Action Group have pioneered new thinking on how we should treat London’s rivers. … The group was formed in 1990 to fight a flood-prevention plan that would have driven the river through yet more concrete channels”.

Sutcliffe Park boardwalk

More praise for QWAG, this time from an article in the Property section of the Evening Standard on living by London’s restored waterways. The article goes on to quote QWAG Chair Ray Manchester as saying it took years to get the group’s alternative plan of flood plain restoration adopted.

Also interviewed are Nikki O’Hara and Peter MacLeod. Nikki, a dancer who goes jogging in Sutcliffe Park enjoys the wildlife as she varies her routes across the bridges and boardwalk.

Peter has lived with is wife Bozena and son Stas overlooking Chinbrook Meadows for over 8 years and recalls its transformation from a “crime-ridden needle-infested no-go area”. The says the river has been key to the regeneration and attributes his son’s love of nature to the chances he has had to study in the park.

Chinbrook Meadows boardwalk