In just over a couple of hours we were able to remove several bags of general rubbish, plus a shopping trolley, traffic cone, bicycle, and about a hundred golf balls! We also managed to clear some of the fallen tree branches, and other detritus, blocking the river flow. Much remains to be done but in the meantime the ducks will be able to soon safely breed on the island, and not get caught up in the rubbish. Further work parties will be arranged, but will not be on the island until after the breeding season.
This is all part of our short term maintenance of this historic pond, pending the approval and implementation of the major long term renovation project. You can find out more about this on our Campaign page.
Yet again the Mill Pond in Glassmill Lane has been polluted, this time with either petrol or light diesel oil. This was spotted on Saturday morning and reported to the Environment Agency. Thames Water staff have now fitted booms to contain the problem, both at the entrance to the pond, as well as downstream just inside Queens Mead.
An earlier pollution incident
This incident is particularly worrying as it comes when ducks etc are starting breeding. Already several moorhen chicks have been lost. This also greatly impacts smaller invertebrates living in the water or silt. In the absence of any rainfall it is to be sincerely hoped that this pollutant will soon dissipate. This part of the Ravensbourne is sadly recognised by Thames Water as a portion ‘hot spot’, with illegal dumping and domestic plumbing misconnections. They are having some difficulties locating many of the sources of such pollution.
The Mill Pond is currently the subject of a plan to upgrade this historic pond. Led by Thames21, with support from the Friends of Bromley Town Parks & Gardens, Environment Agency, Thames Water, etc. it is hoped that funding for this can be agreed in the coming months. In the meantime you can find out more about our plans at http://bit.ly/2hrtoyp
If you wish to get more immediately involved in volunteer days at the Mill Pond please contact chair@bromleytownparks.org.uk
With the passing of the old year, and the start of another it seemed appropriate to celebrate New Years Day with a walk around all seven of our town centre parks. A hardy few turned up, despite the gloomy weather, to work off any results of the Christmas festivities and to enjoy the open spaces of our parks. On our walk we encountered only a few other park users, either walking their dogs or jogging. Otherwise we had the parks to ourselves. Some overflowing waste bins, and remains of spent fireworks on Martins Hill provided evidence of previous celebrations.
After walking through Church House Gardens we passed by the Mill Pond and the Ravensbourne feeding it, now back to its usual flow of water, a couple of visiting cormorants were sighted as well as two resident Egyptian geese who landed in nearby lake. Also spotted were a large number of golf balls isolated on the now bare mud bank. Occasionally passing members of the public have thought of these as small ‘eggs’! These have in fact floated downstream, probably from a local golf club or driving range.
Golf balls deposited on mud bank
After visiting several other parks, and finding them in ‘good order’, we finally arrived at Bromley Palace Park (aka Civic Centre Grounds) where we initially had a setback when we discovered that the gates at the Rafford Way entrance were locked.
Locked gates, Rafford Way
Undeterred by this we instead managed to gain access to the park via the main entrance, where the automatic doors opened as usual. Needless to say we had the site to ourselves. We visited the listed features including the Ice House and the Pulhamite Cascade which we are campaigning to be restored. We duly took a photo, in front of the listed former Palace building, to celebrate our visit.
We normally end our park walks with refreshments in the on site canteen. But as it was inevitably closed we decided to call it a day and make our ways home, wondering what opportunities and challenges our Friends group would encounter in 2020.
There continues to be pollution of the Mill Pond, in Glassmill Lane, Bromley. so the water has become cloudy khaki coloured in appearance. This has been reported and Thames Water have been tasked to investigate. There is some suggestion that this may be related to a burst water main in the Masons Hill area earlier today. We await any further news. The appearance has been made worse by the current very low flow rate on the River Ravensbourne due to the recent lack of rain. Any significant rain should eventually disperse this downstream and into the Thames.
There have been many previous pollution incidents here. These are often the result of incorrect waste connections in either domestic or business premises. Thames Water along with the Environment Agency are working to identify such incidents and identify the culprits.
Recently introduced Lime e-Bike left in Mill Pond.
Sadly an example of the misuse of a good new idea by a few anti-social people. Somebody has thrown an e-bike into the River Ravensbourne at the Mill Pond, in Glassmill Lane. This follows another e-bike that was dumped into the lake in Church House Gardens about the same time, but was later removed by the idVerde parks maintenance team.
The Lime e-bikes have been introduced into Bromley town centre about a week ago. Let us hope that such events do not sour this scheme.
