Today, south east London is a hotspot for urban river restoration. The Ravensbourne catchment has many textbook examples.

Here we track how the area became a showcase for how to restore rivers properly.

This article is based on an original piece written in 2005 soon after the restoration of the River Quaggy in Chinbrook Meadows, Grove Park and in Sutcliffe Park in Greenwich near the borough border with Lewisham. (original article link)

River restoration works

River restoration works. It ticks many of the boxes for making urban life more liveable.

When they are allowed to play their fully functioning natural role, rivers help restore nature, reduce the risks of flooding – keeping lives, properties and businesses safe and dry – and help make neighbourhoods better for people.

But not so long ago, the prospect of rivers being restored was about as far off as a bunch of local residents persuading the authorities, the engineers and the others who thought they knew best, to stop viewing our rivers as the enemy.

For years the conventional view was that rivers were a menace to be tamed only by putting them in sterile concrete canyons beneath or deep in the ground.

How times change. A bunch of local residents formed QWAG precisely to change hearts and minds. That is the short way of explaining why the area is now blessed with so many examples of people getting closer to rivers, remaining safe and the risk of flooding in the area reducing through natural means instead of heavy engineering.

Here’s the longer version.

A new approach

In 1990, QWAG persuaded the then National Rivers Authority (NRA) that water storage – allowing the Quaggy to overflow during heavy storms into specially constructed flood plains where the excess water could be contained – would be the best method of flood control locally.

There were two important consequences. A 1989 proposal for more concrete channelling was halted, and at least some river restoration along the River Quaggy and its flood plain was assured.

In 1994-95, QWAG produced its own plan – Operation Kingfisher – for a complete river restoration of the Quaggy from Chinbrook Meadows (Grove Park) via Sutcliffe Park (Greenwich) to its confluence with the River Ravensbourne in Lewisham town centre.

QWAG’s Operation Kingfisher document, August 1995

Chinbrook Meadows

In 2002, at Chinbrook Meadows, some 300 metres of concrete channel was bulldozed under the supervision of the Environment Agency – the NRA’s Successor body.  This was the first Operation Kingfisher proposal to be put into practice, and QWAG was instrumental in making it happen.

The effect has been dramatic.  Today, a restored river burgeoning with plant and animal life has revitalised what was an uninteresting, little-used public recreational space.  A report in the Homes & Property section of the London Evening Standard (20th August 2003) highlighted the restored river as an added attraction to people considering buying property in the area.

See the story of the restoration the Quaggy in Chinbrook Meadows

Sutcliffe Park and John Roan School playing fields

Success at Chinbrook Meadows was followed in 2003 by two projects crucial for alleviating flooding of 600 homes and businesses downstream in Lewisham.  These projects were first proposed by QWAG in 1992, which shows how long it can take to change minds and get river restoration done.

Persuaded to restore the river instead of consigning to flowing in yet more underground concrete, in 1995 a public consultation of ‘The effects of the quaggy river flood alleviation scheme’ was held by the then NRA, and Greenwich Council’s Leisure Services department.

NRA and Greenwich Council consultation document on restoring the River Quaggy through Sutcliffe Park.

The public responded positively to the idea of seeing the local river flowing above ground again, and at Sutcliffe Park, the Environment Agency released the Quaggy from an underground culvert.

Today the river flows across the park in a sequence of meanders exactly matching those it had in the 19th century.  At the same time, the surface of the park has been lowered and shaped to create an enhanced “natural” flood plain where flood water will collect during high rainfall flowing from upstream and severe storms.

The evolving woodland wetland habitat is changing all of the time as the river and the landscape adapts, as the river deposits silts, and as more birds, bats and other wild species start using the watery landscape and woodlands.

Instead of a flat and uniform stretch of metropolitan grassland, there is now a rolling landscape with a range of natural habitats – the river itself, a lake, ponds (with dipping platform), wildflower meadows, reed beds and a variety of native trees.

Sutcliffe Park restored, 2021, Paul de Zylva / QWAG

In the neighbouring John Roan School playing fields, an entire section of concrete channelling has also been replaced by a natural river, full of life and free to harmlessly flood when water levels rise.

Such is the success of the restored Quaggy in Sutcliffe Park that the Environment Agency (the successor to the NRA) produced a special booklet, A river reborn, in which it said “The Quaggy River was in desperate need of help…Now it is a treasure” and is “now hailed as a blueprint for future projects elsewhere…”

A River reborn – Restoring the Quaggy River and tackling flooding, Environment Agency

Downstream

Following completion of projects at Sutcliffe Park and John Roan School playing fields, flood alleviation work continued (2004-2007) downstream through Lee towards Lewisham.

Two sites offered particular environmental benefits.  Open land at the Willow Country Club, near Weigall Road in Lee, was enabled to store storm water as part of the flood alleviation scheme.  And at Manor Park in Lewisham, the Quaggy was naturalised to become a more prominent and attractive feature within the park.

Much of the remaining river is constrained between buildings, roads and gardens.  Thanks to flood alleviation by water storage, there is no longer the need for more and bigger concrete channels – instead, the river bed and banks can be made more natural and a low-flow channel created that will benefit water quality and fish.

The various restorations of the River Quaggy, from pages 4 and 5 of A River reborn – Restoring the Quaggy River and tackling flooding, Environment Agency

Lewisham town centre

Here, both the Quaggy and Ravensbourne rivers were encased in deep and dangerous concrete.  In 1991, QWAG started promoting the benefits of restoring both rivers in this highly urbanised and heavily used location.

At the turn of the millennium Lewisham secured a £250 million urban regeneration project for the area – the opportunity had arrived. Urban Renaissance in Lewisham (URL) was the Single Regeneration Budget project which aimed to improve the environment around Lewisham’s “Transport Interchange” (the rail, DLR and bus stations) and establish better pedestrian links with the town centre.

QWAG was involved with the project from the start, stressing the benefits of restored rivers – for the people who live, work and shop here and for wildlife. QWAG pressed for one of URL’s aims to be “make the rivers an attractive feature… bringing them to life, ensuring they become an integral, attractive living part of the public realm.”

“The Lewisham Gateway Development is due to be completed by 2010” said the brochure, although budget cuts and other delays mean that the revamp of the centred on the rail, bus and light rail interchanges and the confluence of the River Quaggy and the River Ravensbourne continued into the 2020’s.

Regeneration for the 21st century, Lewisham’s urban renaissance brochure

Timeline

• 1989 Proposal to enlarge and extend concrete channelling along the Quaggy for flood alleviation.
• 1990 QWAG successfully argues that flooding is best alleviated by water storage.
• 1994 QWAG publishes Operation Kingfisher – a plan for full river restoration of the River Quaggy.
• 1995 The NRA and Greenwich Council open public consultations on ’The effects of the quaggy river flood alleviation scheme’.
• 2002 The River Quaggy in Chinbrook Meadows is restored.
• 2003/4 The River Quaggy is restored in Sutcliffe Park and John Roan School playing fields.
• 2005 Reed bed created to filter run off from drains into the River Quaggy at Willow Country Club.
• 2005/6 Works to improve the river bed and create a low-flow meandering stream within some of the existing downstream concrete channels.
• 2006 River Quaggy enhanced at Manor Park
• 2009 Lewisham Council grants outline planning permission for the Lewisham Gateway centred on the meeting of the Quaggy and Ravensbourne rivers. The scheme is due to open in 2010 but is heavily delayed into the 2020’s.
• 2021 The revamped Confluence Park opens with rivers flowing more naturally albeit still with a concrete river base.

QWAG river clean up in Confluence Place, May 2021. Photo credit: Paul de Zylva / QWAG

Epilogue

River restoration works. Our original article ended as follows:

QWAG believes that restoring rivers offers environmental, educational, and amenity benefits. But the work can be expensive, particularly when breaking up and removing concrete channelling. To date, most of the work has been undertaken where financing has been largely justified for other purposes – primarily the protection of property from flooding. To carry out a complete restoration of the Quaggy, as proposed in QWAG’s Operation Kingfisher, it will be necessary to justify some funding in terms of environmental and social benefits alone. QWAG believes in those benefits. But ultimately it is the people who live and work here who must decide what happens to their river.

That’s what we wrote in 1995, which goes to show how long it can take to put things right.

When residents from across Bromley, Greenwich and Lewisham formed QWAG in the late 1980’s, and started pushing for the restoration of local rivers, the huge societal demand for action to curb dangerous climate change and to restore the UK’s depleted nature and wildlife were regarded by most people and politicians as peripheral and perhaps even ridiculous ideas.

Now they are mainstream.