Community river campaigns
Last updated: 6 July 2026.
The UK Rivers Network is not currently running any campaigns, but you might like to browse these campaigns being run by other groups.
Here are some examples of the kinds of campaigns we welcome on this page:
- Campaigns against developments that damage, degrade, or destroy rivers, floodplains, lakes, canals, other inland waterways, and so on.
- Campaigns to fight pollution, improve water quality, designate inland bathing waters, and so on.
- Campaigns to restore neglected rivers or waterways.
- Campaigns to improve public access to (or enjoyment of) rivers (providing they don't cause environmental damage in the process).
- More general environmental campaigns that benefit rivers indirectly (e.g. campaigns to reduce litter, fight climate change, or whatever).
- Other water/environmental campaigns likely to be of interest to the UK rivers community.
We'd really appreciate your help in keeping this page up-to-date, so please tell us of any other campaigns you know about by posting a message on our Facebook page.
Pollution and water quality campaigns
River Action
The energetic team at River Action have a five-year plan for rescuing rivers from pollution and over-abstraction (taking out more water for human activities than a river can actually support). Find out more → River Action.
Surfers Against Sewage
SAS have been fighting crappy water quality for over 30 years, with (originally) direct action and (now) live alerts for water users, but they're not just surfers and they don't focus only on sewage. Find out more → Sewage Against Sewage: Water Quality.
Anglers Against Pollution
The Angling Trust fights pollution, fishing bans, and more. Its partner organization, Fish Legal, uses legal challenges to fight polluters, developers, and unhelpful water companies.
Better rivers – an end to pollution
The Soil Association (champions of organic food and farming) have been working on water quality from the other direction—and the pollution caused by industrial farms through wastewater runoff, antibiotics, soil erosion, and climate change. Find out more → Soil Association: Stop killing our rivers.
The Sewage Campaign Network
In 2024, a couple of dozen river, fishing, and other community groups banded together (with help from the indomitable Feargal Sharkey) to tackle sewage. Find out more → The Sewage Campaign Network.
Save Britain's Rivers
Meanwhile, Lucie Heath, Environment Correspondent of The i newspaper, has been keeping up media pressure. Find out more → i's Save Britain's Rivers 2024 manifesto in full.
Inland bathing waters
Wild swimming groups
The UK Rivers Network has long supported people campaigning to make it easier for people to swim outdoors. You can see from our news archive that we were highlighting the need for more designated inland bathing waters back in 2002! We fully acknowledge the safety risks of swimming in rivers and lakes, of course, but that doesn't mean people should only be allowed to swim in nasty chlorinated indoor pools. The key is to provide good quality information explaining to people exactly where and when it is safe to swim out of doors by properly designating more official "bathing waters", as required by European legislation. Find out more → River and Lake Swimming Association (the website hasn't been updated for a long time) and → Outdoor Swimming Society.
Surfers Against Sewage
In the last few years, Surfers Against Sewage have also extended their popular sewage alert app (→ The Safer Seas & Rivers Service) to cover a number of inland swimming spots, although, because they're not all designated, they don't all have real-time pollution monitoring. It's also worth pointing out that while this is a super-useful tool, it does run the risk of normalizing pollution and the use of CSOs. Real-time pollution information is not an alternative to water companies cleaning up their act; it is a temporary sticking plaster and not something we should see as a permanent workaround.
Surfers Against Sewage are currently running a major campaign to designate 200 inland bathing waters by 2030. Find our more → Protecting wild waters.
The WI
Always a good barometer of public opinion, and much more radical than you might think, the WI have waged some notable eco campaigns over the years. At the moment, they're running a campaign to promote the designation of inland bathing waters. Find out more → Clean Rivers for People and Wildlife.
Planning "reform"
A coalition of the big environmental NGOs are currently fighting the Government's proposed Planning and Infrastructure Bill reforms. Find out more → RSPB and → The Wildlife Trusts.
Off the Table
WildFish (formerly the Salmon and Trout Association) have been running a campaign to educate chefs and diners in the evils of salmon farms, with their "huge environmental, sustainability and welfare issues". Find out more → Off the Table.
International campaigns
For the most up-to-date information about international river campaigns, please nip across and take a look at: