What a Fantastic Day!

Published: Mon, 05/02/22

What an amazing day at the Declaration of the Rights of the River Wensum on Saturday!

Some of you reading this, we met for the first time on Saturday, so welcome to Stop the Wensum Link!

The sun was shining, the blossom was out, and the turnout was fantastic.

If you missed out, you can see a section of the performance here and a video of Nick Acheson's powerful speech (Ambassador for Norfolk Wildlife Trust).

We would like to thank everyone who took part and made this such a successful event. The speakers, who all gave a different and unique perspective on the River and why it is important, the fantastic bands, and the stallholders, the caterers, and our great team of volunteers who made it all happen.

As Charlie Gardner reminded us in his speech, local people coming together in grassroots organisations like this one are essential to ensuring a future where both people and nature can thrive. Thanks to everyone for standing up for the River Wensum!

See more about how you can get involved below.

Freedom of the City for the River Wensum

Those of you who were at the park on Saturday will have heard councillor Lucy Galvin calling for Norwich to grant the river Wensum the civic honour of freedom of the city, and put Norwich ahead of the game, and on the map for recognising the value of nature.

You can sign the petition to ask the City Council to do that here.

Finally.... TONIGHT (2nd May) is the deadline for submissions for the Local Transport Plan (which is pushing the Norwich Western Link road) - see below for how to have your say.

The Stop the Wensum Team

photos: From top L Morrison Gooch, Claire Bullion, Keith Osborn

What Can I do to help?

There are many actions: from a one off 2 minutes, to joining us in organising. We are a small team, and are always in need of help to share the load!

1. Sign and share our petition against the Link Road. We want to get over 10,000 signatures, and we are close!

2. Sign the petition to have Norwich grant the River Wensum Freedom of the City

3. Contribute to and share our crowdfunder ! This is funding the preliminary stages of our legal challenge to the NWL- see the crowdfunder page for more details.

3. Get friends and family to sign up for this newsletter.

(there is public consultation in the offing and we need LOTS of people to respond to it, so get everyone you can on board!). Make sure they check spam if they don't receive a confirmation email.

4. Join us! We will be a little quiet for a few weeks while we recover from putting on the River Rights event. But we will be back at it soon and we always need more help. Look out for the next meetings and events in this newsletter, we are a small friendly team, so please just turn up, whether on line or in person.

5.Comment and share on our social media posts (if you make a comment Facebook will show posts to more people). You can join our active Facebook Group to hear about actions and how to take part first, and to share ideas and contacts.

6. Put up posters or leave leaflets in a cafe or pub etc (with permission of course!). Available at Ernies in Norwich or ask us for some.

7. Have Your Say: local transport Plan mentioned above - details here

8.....there is lots more, from surveying the Valley to looking into the alternatives to road building. Watch this short video to get an idea of the range of things you can get involved in. Contact stopthewensumlink@protonmail.com if you want to get stuck in now!