Artist calls for cleaner Thames with exhibition

A Surrey artist is using an exhibition to call for the government's Clean Water Bill to be strengthened in a bid to make the River Thames cleaner.

Rory Maguire, from Weybridge, is hosting an exhibition on the towpath by Elmbridge Canoe Club on Saturday to highlight the "ongoing sewage crisis plaguing the River Thames".

The exhibition is part of a nationwide push from charity Surfers Against Sewage.

The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: "Our strengthened Water Bill will deliver cleaner waters, give new powers to mayors to hold water companies [to] account and will create a powerful new regulator so that companies can deliver for customers and the environment."

The exhibition includes a metre-long (3.2ft) steel salmon carcass and a steel butterfly sculpture.

"Art has a unique power to make people stop, look, and feel something raw about the environment they walk past every day," Maguire said.

"By bringing these steel and lead sculptures directly on to the Thames towpath, I want to bridge the gap between heavy political legislation and the physical reality of our waters.

"The steel salmon and the butterfly wings represent the beautiful, fragile ecosystems we stand to lose if we don't force systemic change right now."

Passers-by will also be encouraged to pose with the steel salmon in a provided fisherman's outfit to highlight river pollution, Maguire says.

Defra said it agreed the system was not working and that it was driving forward "the biggest overhaul of the water sector in a generation".

Thames Water said its storm overflows operated within Environment Agency limits and were a legally permitted part of the wastewater system.

It explained it was delivering the largest upgrade to its wastewater network in 150 years by increasing treatment capacity and reducing storm discharges.

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