On 16th July 2026 Cambridge City Council declared the rights of the river Cam in a motion which originated with Green Party councillors and was amended by Labour and Liberal Democrats. The declaration followed the practice of Friends of the Cam who have declared the rights of the Cam, at 6pm each midsummer’s evening, with a community of hundreds, at its annual river rights festival. The action of the Council in repeating our practice, involved a solemn undertaking.
Festival planning starts in the new year and to organise our Festival finances well in advance for 2027 (hold the date: 21 June), we have launched a Just Giving page, which can be accessed here. Any donation however small is very gratefully received. We have a target to raise £1000 to cover the festival costs.
Julie Kavanagh, Anne Rivington and Charlotte Rivington designed some colourful hand painted visual petition sheets on which people attending the Rights of the River event wrote personal messages, addressed to Daniel Zeicnher, Cambridge MP. The petition describes concern over high levels of illegal sewage dumping and expresses no confidence in the ability of Anglian Water and Cambridge Water to address the issues which their mismanagement has contributed to and calls for water to be brought back into public ownership.
On June 21st, Midsummer's Eve, around 500 people gathered to declare the Rights of the River Cam for the 6th consecutive year. Some of the context for this is provided in the two introductory talks attached here. Peter Hammond, one of the the two campaigners from the River Windrush (Windrush Against Sewage Pollution) , spoke movingly about his motivations for his work, including the death of Heather Preen as a result of E-coli poisoning, and the bravery of her mother Julie Preen (now Maughan).
On Tuesday 17th March Friends of the Cam had a meeting with Daniel Zeichner as part of the Sewage Campaign Network Day in Parliament. The report of our meeting, as well as a report of an evening meeting focused on the Channel 4 drama-documentary Dirty Business hosted by Clive Lewis MP for Norwich South, is attached.
This is a critical time for Cambridge and its surrounding area as the Government is in the process of imposing an unelected body - the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation - on the city region. On Monday, 23rd March Cambridge Past Present and Future hosted a discussion (the recording is available here: ‘Who Decides Cambridge’s Future’ ) and FotC’s steering group member (and Chair of FeCRA) Wendy Blythe was on the panel.
Friends of the Cam occasionally make presentations, including to community groups and students. Recent talks have included those to local Women's Institutes, Friends of Midsummer Common, University of Cambridge Student Environment Group and Anglia Ruskin students studying the rights of nature. We welcome invitations to speak. The attached presentation on Threats to the river Cam and what we can do about them will give some idea of content. Please feel free to quote, with acknowledgement.
Robert Macfarlane writes about his experience of Friends of the Cam’s river festival and declaration in his new book ‘Is A River Alive?’
One of the co-founders of Friends of the Cam, Tony Booth, stood for Chancellor of Cambridge University (Film explaining why here).
We were pleased to host Rob Larter on May 21st 2025, who spoke about how the West Antarctic Ice Sheet change is the largest source of uncertainty in future sea-level rise predictions and how accelerating sea-level rise impacts coastal erosion and the risk of coastal flooding events around East Anglia. A copy of Rob's slides can be found here. He highlighted how a relatively small rise in sea level has a disproportionate effect on the recurrence interval of extreme high wate