Tales and Pictures from the Riverbank

A visitor to Penwortham, Chris from Norfolk, sent in these pictures, saying he is so impressed by the beauty, and peace and quiet of the River and green spaces in the Broadgate, Penwortham, and Frenchwood areas which run along the beautiful River Ribble, he is looking to move here as soon as he can - as he says, 'Where else can people boast of having all this unspoilt beauty on their doorstep?'...






Birds at low tide sunning themselves on the exposed stones of the river bed...


...and other Ribblesiders can be seen on the exposed flats of low tide enjoying this beautiful summer weather too...




Ribbleside - space to breathe!

Thanks Chris!


The appreciation of the power and beauty and environmental integrity of the River Ribble, and the threat facing this magnificent agent of Nature, has caused many local residents to reflect on how they feel about the irreplaceable value of this area, and its own vital existence beyond the narrow and ill-conceived aims of economic gain.
Aidan of Frenchwood sent us an extract from a poem by T. S. Eliot which struck him as particularly relevant...

I do not know much about gods; but I think that the river
Is a brown god - sullen, untamed and intractable,
Patient to some degree, at first recognised as a frontier;
Useful, untrustworthy, as a conveyor of commerce;
Then only as a problem confronting the builder of bridges.
The problem once solved, the brown god is almost forgotten
By the dwellers in cities - ever, however, implacable,
Keeping his seasons and rages, destroyer, reminder
Of what men choose to forget. Unhonoured, unpropitiated
By worshippers of the machine, but waiting, watching and waiting.

'Dry Salvages' from T. S. Eliot's 'Four Quartets'.


This poem is also a stark reminder that we Ribblesiders have been very lucky this summer - only a few localised floods - due entirely to the efficient drain the Ribble provides to a huge area of Lancashire, taking the unprecedented levels of rainwater safely down to the sea...


Jim B joined the Ribblesiders Ribble Coast & Wetlands Walk to Brockholes on 4th August, and sent in a link to some of the photos he took of the event, which you can look at here Jim's Ribble Walk to Brockholes pics...


The following pictures were sent in by JB of Middleforth who, like many Ribblesiders, spends as much time as possible messing about by the River and on the Penwortham Green Belt - come rain or shine (which is just as well, given the RAIN this summer!).

From the River in all her moods and at all tides...


...from a lazy river meandering by on a beautiful warm day...


...to low tide, always a pleasure for ALL Ribblesiders...


...to high rainfall, which brings high river levels - even at Neap tides as here...


...yet even the rain brings its own beauty to the river, in sight and in sound...


...including the roar of the Ribble's spate waters as they churn by.

The diverse and fabulous green spaces which run back from the Ribble's banks offer their own delights...


...from fabulous riverbank trees...


...which still look impressive even when the River levels are threatening their roots...


...to diverse green spaces of barley fields...


...and meadows, rich with numerous grasses...


...and wildflowers...

...and of course whatever the weather, Ribblesiders are enjoying the Ribble's wildlife wherever possible...


...insects form the basis of the foodchain...


...although the odd bag of breadcrumbs is always welcome for the ducks!


The Ribble's numerous Swans always manage to maintain a more dignified air...




...and all this is STILL only 5 minutes walk from a busy city centre...


For more of this summer's Ribbleside pictures, see The Ribble Cycle Diaries...

Contact us at savetheribble@tiscali.co.uk

Protect Our Allotments!

Allotments are great for people and the environment:

This great picture is from 'Tales From The Allotment' a local Preston Allotment blogger, who is also a talented artist and a member of Save The Ribble, it really points out the reasons why Allotments are gaining in popularity.

His best post so far is this one on the various benefits of allotment keeping.

Save The Ribble is making a stand about the importance of allotments because the developers and property consultants behind the Riverworks Barrage proposals desperately want to get their hands on this land so that they can build housing and business premises over it.

The facts are that Preston is one of the unhealthiest towns in the country, and people badly need the fresh organic vegetables they can grow on their allotments, and that the allotments in question are actually in the Ribble flood plain, and currently help us with our flood protection (they are like big sponges that soak up rain and flood water, preventing it getting to our houses). These facts don't seem to matter to our council, when there are huge potential profits at stake.



Allotment plotter also painted this great picture, pointing out the kind of beautiful scenery we could lose if the Riverworks proposals go ahead. Preston is one of the few cities where within five minutes walk of the town centre, you can find yourself in open countryside, with cows grazing. It is one of the great things about living in Preston, and local people don't want to lose this beautiful green land to yet another suburban housing estate.

Where Preston wants to build on the greenbelt land beside the Ribble - the darker pink areas would all be new housing

Read more about the threat to our allotments, and the campaign to save them here.

Pro-River Campaigns Around The World

When we at “Save The Ribble’ first began our campaign almost a year ago exactly, we thought we were just an isolated case of a local community and it’s river under threat from an undemocratic alliance of local politicians, officials and developers.

As we have continued our campaign, we have quickly learned that we are not on our own, and that all around the world, rivers, the people who live nearby and the eco-diversity they support face very similar challenges to those faced by the people living near the Ribble.

Save The Mary River Campaigners


For example, in Australia, local people are resisting a huge project to dam the Mary River: they have set up The Save The Mary River Campaign, they say:

“The more that is known about the Traveston Crossing Dam proposal on the Mary River, the worse it looks Queensland Premier Mr. Peter Beattie announced on Thursday, 27th April 2006 that the Queensland Government proposes to build a mega-dam (more than 1.3 times the area of Sydney Harbour) on the Mary River at Traveston Crossing that will inundate the central Mary Valley in Queensland's Sunshine Coast hinterland and re-direct the water of the Mary River catchment into Brisbane. Until the announcement, no information had been made public about ANY planning procedures or studies to justify the decision. There had been absolutely NO public consultation with any of the local stakeholders regarding this decision before the announcement.

The State Government's own scientific evidence indicates that this proposal would seriously degrade the 200km of river downstream of the proposal and greatly effect the Great Sandy Straits by stopping all fresh water flow to the sea from the river for a significant proportion of the time. Independant economic analysis now shows that the proposal is an extremely high risk, high cost strategy compared to other viable means of providing for urban water supply in SE Qld, and would produce water that will cost the public significantly more than most of the other viable options investigated. Reputable academic studies assessing social impact of the way the project has been implemented to date have been condemnatory in their conclusions.
It still looks as if the decision to spend billions of dollars of public money on a potential environmental and social disaster has been made on the basis of political expediency rather than good science, engineering and planning.

Read more at Traveston Swamp News

Image from www.riosvivos.org.br

Meanwhile people in the La Plata Basin in Paraguay are resisting plans to turn their river into an industrial shipping channel.

“scientists predict that the channelization of the Paraguay River would cause the wetlands to shrink, with associated losses in biodiversity”

The preservation of wetlands is also a key issue for the future of the Ribble - these would be drowned upriver of a barrage, and starved of the silts that nourish them downriver.

People in China face an even more massive, threat, from the ‘Three Gorges Dam Project’



According to the International Rivers Network:

“The (three gorges) project has been plagued by massive corruption problems, spiraling costs, technological problems, human rights violations and resettlement difficulties. One million people have been displaced by the dam as of 2006; many are living under poor conditions with no recourse to address outstanding problems with compensation or resettlement. Said one peasant from Kai county, "We have been to the county government many times demanding officials to solve our problems, but they said this was almost impossible. They have threatened us with arrest if we appeal for help from higher government offices."

The dam is having terrible effects on the environment as well as the people:

“The dam is also affecting one of the world’s biggest fisheries in the East China Sea. Scientists estimate that annual catches may be reduced by one million tons due to the decline in fresh water and sediment reaching the sea. The Yangtze delta and tidal wetlands are already being badly eroded the loss of sediment.”

This is very similar to the potential consequences of a Ribble barrage, which would cut of the flow of silts to the environmentally significant Ribble Estuary and the Ribble Estuary Wetland Park.

Another set of dams threatens the River Narmada in central India


Campaigners demonstrated and fasted against the Narmada dam project

Campaigners against this project argue

“A quick look at the ground reality would disabuse anyone of the real nature of the dam-builder's enterprise. Large dams imply large budgets for related projects leading to large profits for a small group of people. A mass of research shows that even on purely technical grounds, large dams have been colossal failures. While they have delivered only a fraction of their purported benefits, they have had an extremely devastating effect on the riverine ecosystem and have rendered destitute large numbers of people (whose entire sustenance and modes of living are centered around the river). For no large dam in India has it been shown that the resettled people have been provided with just compensation and rehabilitation.”

There are also campaigns sparking off to destroy existing dams and barrages; the American group Taxpayers for Common Sense argue for the destruction of 4 dams on the Snake River.

They say:

Several stocks of Lower Snake River salmon and steelhead are already extinct or headed to extinction. Removing the four hydroelectric dams on the Lower Snake River in eastern Washington State is the only way to save the fish...

The sooner the dams are removed, the better. They are the key barrier to a crucial ecosystem – the pristine fish spawning grounds above the dams and the estuaries that lead to the Pacific Ocean. Environmentalists, Native Americans and commercial and sport fishing interests all have a special interest in the fish and the ecosystem.

Around the world, experts and now some governments are beginning to realise that as well as being environmentally destructive, and socially damaging to local people BARRAGES AND DAMS ARE EXPENSIVE - they neccessitate dredging and groundwater pumping which can cost £millions every year - of course it is the taxpayers who end up carrying this economic burden, when the developers have long since departed, with pockets full of cash.

There is lots of information on the economic costs of dams and on the benefits of destroying them in the “River Revival Bulletin”:
and also here


Dam being decommissioned
© Roberto Epple, ERN

It is great to know we are part of a worldwide pro-river movement, and we are sure that if enough people mobilise and explain the true social, economic and environmental costs of barrages and dams, we can gradually turn the tide against unsound and irresponsible dam and barrage projects, including the Riverworks Barrage.

The River Wild

The River Ribble is not a pretty chocolate-box river - she is beautiful, wild and free, her moods changing from calm to stormy in hours...


This isn't the sea on a stormy Winter's day, it's the River Ribble, in spate and flowing between Preston and Penwortham to the sea...

These pictures were taken today, 18th January 07, from high tide until 2 hours later...


...walking downriver from Priory Park in Penwortham - where huge waves were whipped into spray by the high winds...


... and it was difficult to believe that the tide had been going OUT for over an hour at this point...


... walking back upriver over an hour later, by Liverpool Road Bridge the surface was more calm but flowing down towards the sea at high speed, drowning the riverside footpath here near the allotments...


... and Broadgate sails by as the Ribble speeds on her way to the sea...


...and trees are carried down towards the sea on the Ribble's spate waters at high speed...


... and Leyland Rd is very close indeed, here near the Bridge Inn...


... the Riverside footpath on the Penwortham side has disappeared altogether under the flood waters...


- careful with that poop scoop -


...the bench usually overlooks the Ribble here, set back from the river's edge by several metres, but today it is swamped by the spate waters, despite high tide being 2 hours earlier...


... to compare with low tide and little rain a couple of weeks earlier, these joggers are passing the same benches...


- the high rainfall and high river level means the water table rises -


- including on Margaret Rd, but luckily the spate waters will drain down to the sea in a matter of hours, allowing the water table to subside too...


... the drains backing up and spraying water out are an impressive sight (but only if not in your kitchen or back garden!)...


Long Live the Ribble Wild!

savetheribble@tiscali.co.uk