What We Are Doing

We are on a mission to return Windermere to its ecologically natural state, through the complete removal of ALL treated & untreated sewage discharges into the Windermere catchment. Our aim is to position Windermere as the poster-child for the national crisis resulting from the mismanagement of our water utilities.

We will ensure Windermere’s future - ecologically, economically and socially.

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435K

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23M

Signatures and counting

Video views and counting

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What?

  • Ensure Windermere is restored to its ecologically natural state.

  • Ensure wildlife is able to survive and thrive in Windermere.

  • Ensure Windermere remains safe for locals and visitors to enjoy.

How?

  • Compel United Utilities to invest heavily in infrastructure to remove their input entirely.

  • Demand openness and transparency and compel United Utilities to release currently withheld data.

  • Collect further evidence of ecological damage and illegality within the catchment.

  • Hold organisations to account to ensure they are held legally responsible for their actions.

  • Further mobilise the press and influence public opinion through events, films and demonstrations.

  • Lobby Parliament, politicians, policy makers and United Utilities’ institutional investors to effect change.

Why?

  • To ensure polluters are held to account.

  • To ensure the sustainability of businesses that rely upon the lake and the tourists it brings in.

  • To affect systemic change at a national level and protect this unique lake.

What Can Be Done?

Windermere

Ducks swimming in algal bloom in Windermere
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Empty gray basin on a transparent background
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Glacial Lake

18km long

Two distinctive basins

Population 17,500

Sewage discharges

Massive pollution problem

Annecy

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Outline of a lake basin
Icon of two people representing a group or community.
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Glacial Lake

14km long

Two distinctive basins

Population 130,000

No sewage

Cleanest lake in Europe

In the 1960s, the impact of sewage on Annecy became clear. The lake saw increased algal blooms and declines in fish populations. Driven by a campaigning community, the mayor and local politicians, Annecy has been transformed. They have achieved this by channeling their sewage to treatment plants outside of the lake's catchment.

It is now the cleanest lake in Europe.

United Utilities has previously modelled complete removal of one of their assets discharging into Windermere at an estimated cost of £25 million, which in the context of their turnover and profits is a minimal investment.

If we can achieve what has been done in Annecy, we and our families can, once again, swim free from fear in our lake.