Thames21 restores its first London chalk stream
Wednesday, November 25, 2020
Thames21 has begun restoring part of the river Cray, a chalk stream, at Foots Cray Meadows near Sidcup, south London. We aim to restore 800m of the river between now and March 2021 by adding large wood into the channel.
Chalk streams are a rare habitat globally; only approximately 200 exist worldwide. Eighty-five per cent of these are in southern England. The river Cray is a healthy urban chalk stream along part of its stretches, but it suffers the same pressures as any other urban river: plastic and other pollution, artificial modification and water abstraction for human use.
