Evidence-led representation · Teddington · Ham · Kingston · Richmond · Petersham

River Thames Evidence & Representation Programme

A structured, source-referenced case on the ecological health, water quality, public use and official monitoring of the River Thames between Teddington Weir and Richmond — and what needs to be done about it. Every figure published here carries a citation to its original source, so that residents, regulators and elected representatives can check the evidence for themselves rather than take it on trust.

Independent programme Open evidence · sources cited Teddington Weir to Richmond

What this is

This site publishes the working documents of an independent evidence programme concerning a single stretch of the tidal and freshwater Thames. It is not a campaign site and it does not ask you to accept a conclusion.

The purpose is narrow and practical: to assemble what is actually known about this reach of the river from official monitoring, published datasets and public records; to identify clearly where that evidence is thin, contested or absent; and to set out proportionate asks of the bodies that hold statutory responsibility for it. The material below is organised into two zones — the evidence base itself, and why it matters in the wider national picture. Everything is versioned, dated, and revised as new information is obtained.

  • Sourced. Figures and claims are referenced to the dataset, publication or public record they came from, with a provenance tag.
  • Provisional. Material is published at working-draft stage and marked with its version and date, not held back until it is final.
  • Corrigible. Where a body identifies an error in this evidence, the correction is made and recorded.

Zone 1 · The evidence base

Evidence

Eight self-contained evidence pages, each built directly from primary data and every figure tagged with its provenance — RAW-PULL (data we downloaded and parsed), PUBLISHED (quoted from an official source), DERIVED (our inference from a stated rule) or ACCESS-BLOCKED (public in a browser but unreachable by automation). Read, cite and share them freely.

  • Evidence

    Water quality

    Dissolved oxygen, ammonia, phosphate, nutrients and temperature at Teddington Weir (freshwater) and Richmond (tidal) — 2,432 observations from the EA Water Quality Archive. Oxygenated but eutrophic above the weir; fish-stress oxygen sags below Mogden.

    Working page · RAW-PULLOpen →

  • Evidence

    Sewage & storm overflows

    Mogden sewage works (permit CNTD.0085): storm-tank discharge hours and counted spills to the tidal Thames, 2020–2025. 2024 was the worst year on record — 471.7 hours across 50 spills. Duration only; no volume is published anywhere.

    Working page · RAW-PULLOpen →

  • Evidence

    WFD status & compliance

    Water Framework Directive classifications for the river and tidal bodies: below "good" for three cycles, sewage discharge named as a reason on both, and the chemical objective relaxed to 2063 citing "disproportionate burdens".

    Working page · RAW-PULLOpen →

  • Evidence

    Fish & aquatic ecology

    A 32-year Richmond seine-net series, the collapse of the Critically Endangered European eel (12 in 1993 to none after 2019), and an honest audit of how thin the mainstem ecological evidence really is.

    Working page · RAW-PULLOpen →

  • Evidence

    Birds & biodiversity

    142,070 NBN Atlas records: 19,469 waterbird records across 23 species, indicator species (eel, smelt, quagga mussel) and the effort-versus-population caveat that means these counts are context, not proof of cause.

    Working page · RAW-PULLOpen →

  • Evidence

    Bathing water

    England's first designated river bathing water at Ham & Kingston (designated 15 May 2026): the E. coli and intestinal enterococci samples now coming in, and why no formal "safe to swim" classification is due until about 2029.

    Working page · PUBLISHEDOpen →

  • Evidence

    Accountability & context

    The regulatory record: Ofwat's record £122.7m penalty (May 2025), 523 pollution incidents and a bottom 1-star rating in 2024, and ZSL's long-term State of the Thames temperature and oxygen trends. Fines proven; charges kept distinct from convictions.

    Working page · PUBLISHEDOpen →

  • Interactive

    Cross-correlations

    The interactive flagship: where the strands meet — storm spills, dissolved oxygen, season and ecology — shown together, with correlation held carefully apart from causation and every asserted link flagged as such.

    Interactive · mixed provenanceOpen →

Zone 2 · The wider picture

Why it matters / In the news

The reach does not sit in isolation. A five-year sweep of 88 catalogued news items — from Thames Water's finances and record penalties to the Water (Special Measures) Act 2025 and the local Teddington abstraction saga — sets out why this evidence matters and what is at stake for the river and the people who use it. Legal status is stated with care: "charged" and "alleged" are never presented as "convicted"; regulatory fines are kept distinct from criminal convictions.

  • News

    Why it matters / In the news

    The national and local context in one place: the biggest stories of the last five years, the regulatory reforms now under way, and how the Teddington-to-Richmond reach fits the wider story of water in England.

    Awareness zone · 88 sourced itemsOpen →