River Festival review – Love Our Ouse

On 25th September 2022 Love our Ouse partnered with the Railway Land Wildlife Trust to deliver a one day, free and inclusive River Festival at the Railway Land Reserve in Lewes. It was Love our Ouse’s official launch and comprised a grand taster of what we are about and wish to develop in the future.

We curated a huge range of activities for people to engage with consisting of our own projects, as well as inviting many external individuals, groups and organisations to participate to create a rich and varied offering. We were determined that there be something for everyone!

It was a truly magical and epic day! The best launch we could have asked for. We had beautiful sunny weather, an amazing public turnout of 1600 visitors and we’ve had such a lot of positive feedback since. A massive thank you to everyone who came and took part!

Watch on YouTube, featuring the Swimming Song!

“Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust think this was a fantastic event and well done to all those involved in the organising of it. To have attracted 1600+ people to something like this is a huge achievement and not something I suspect could have been achieved by many others, so brilliant job.”

Peter King

Director Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust

We brought together a huge variety of Ouse river enthusiasts, supporters, investors, stakeholders, recreational users, experts and revellers to the festival including:

Ouse and Adur Rivers Trust
Sussex Flow Initiative
Sussex Wildlife Trust
Environment Agency
Southern Water
Lewes District Council
South Downs National Park
Sussex University
Paul Powesland, Rights for Nature
The Aquifer Partnership
Ouse Angling Preservation Society
Human Nature
Lewes Climate Hub

Seaford Environmental Alliance
Sussex Ouse Restoration Trust
Strandliners
Marine Conservation Society
Lewes Rowing Club
Jon Mason, story teller and PhD researcher, University of Brighton
Angels with Attitude Choir
Tide Mills Community Choir
Patina – Moving on Parade
Local guided walk experts Jon Bleach, Jenny Lindop and Steve Homewood
…and more!

The event included our first ever Community Mapping and a facilitated session launching our flagship project to create a tailored Rights of River Charter for the Ouse with local communities.

Want to find out more?

You can read our full Festival Report, first draft Rights of River Declaration and our Community Mapping Report. See all reports here.

Special thanks to

Railway Land Wildlife Trust for hosting, supporting and providing such valuable expertise and volunteers in both planning and delivery. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Lewes District Council – Cllr Matthew Bird, Bryn Mabey, Jane Goodall and Ellen Miller
John May for curating the River Revelry.

And to our funders too:

Photos by Willie Robb