Clean River Kent Campaign – our vision

We’ve created a short-term vision for 2030 and we’re also working on a 2050 vision, which we’ll share soon. Our 2030 vision:

  • Planned investment by United Utilities (UU) should have been completed throughout the period to 2030. CRKC will monitor the course of these upgrades to ensure that they achieve their stated aims:
    • Eliminating the discharge of sewage discharges onto the streets of Staveley by improving the sewage system through the village to Staveley Wastewater Treatment Works (WwTW)
    • Increasing the capacity of Staveley WwTW to meet the needs of the current population, and to allow for increases in population and for climate change
    • Reducing the number of spills of sewage into the river to 10 or less per annum at each site where sewage is discharged
    • Improving the quality of the treated effluent
    • Improving the ecosystem and habitats associated with the River Kent
    • These improvements could be delivered before 2030 and we will keep pressure on to make that happen.
  • Achieving bathing water status for at least one location on the river Kent.
  • Using the results of our nutrient testing and microbial source tracking citizen science projects to inform the next phase of this programme to ensure that the levels of nutrients and bacteria in the river are significantly reduced.
  • Undertaking work to understand the significance of discharges from poorly maintained off-mains wastewater treatment (eg septic tanks) and agricultural run-off.
  • Communities throughout the river catchment will be actively participating in its protection.
  • There should be a properly resourced and effective regulatory framework for monitoring the water industry. The organisations tasked with operating this framework, currently the Environment Agency and Ofwat, will have open and transparent reporting and data sharing.
  • Engaging with all political parties to influence both national and local elections, seeking to obtain from those parties commitments to achieve CRKC aims.
  • Continuing to maintain a high profile in the media by publishing the results of the CRKC citizen science programme, and sustaining the CRKC campaign to make the river Kent clean for all types of water-based recreation and to protect the ecology and wildlife in the river by working with local communities.