River waste – the illegal trash mountain threatening Oxford’s river Cherwell

Update, 15/12/2025. I’m pleased to hear that the Environment Agency has decided the situation is serious enough to warrant an immediate clearup of this particular waste mountain, as reported first in Oxford’s ‘The Clarion’. Though saddened that the decision was apparently made for reasons of fire risk (the site is right next to the A34) rather than any risk to the environment. In any case, thank you to the Oxfordshire Fire & Rescue Service.

It is difficult to explain how angry I feel about the illegal waste dump on the banks of the river Cherwell in Oxfordshire – https://channel4news.substack.com/p/uks-mountain-of-illegal-waste-declared/. (26/11/2025).

I was born and bred in Oxford, and grew up familiar with the ways of the rivers Cherwell and the Thames (or Isis) as they run through the city. As a child, a teenager and an adult I enjoyed punting, rowing and kayaking on the rivers. The waters were, barring a certain amount of sediment, reasonably clean and healthy.

The Cherwell especially, as it flows through the beautiful University Parks into the Thames, can provide a little bit of paradise in the summer. A gentle current down a small, muddy river, bushes and overhanging trees, foraging ducks and swans, it can be serene and timeless, especially at sunrise and sunset.

Generations of people both Oxford students and townies have gone punting or rowing, got stuck in the trees, fallen in the river, and lounged on the river banks to dry off, to the amusement of everyone around.

But now that little bit of paradise is history. The pollutants in the water leaching from this illegal waste dump near Kidlington, almost on the banks of the Cherwell, will destroy life in and on the river for a generation.

For wildlife it is a tragedy. First the fish will die. Then, after the river plants have been poisoned, insect grubs will fail to hatch and the insects will be gone. Then the birds will disappear, first the small ones which make so much enjoyable music in the summer, and eventually the larger birds which depend on them.

Animals? Forget the water voles, they have largely disappeared. Hedgehogs, once common, are also vanishing from city gardens. Now even the water rats in the river banks will disappear. We forget, sometimes, how fragile a beautiful place can be (from Marguerite Yourcenar’s Mémoirs d’Hadrien, I believe).

Apart from the multiple deaths of river wildlife, what about us poor humans? Poisoned waters mean no more safe swimming, no more harmless falling in the water to friends’ laughter. No more mild panics at cows in the river. No more gentle floating down the upper reaches at sunset past sleeping swans as you make your way home from the pub.

All of these things I have enjoyed, even after I left the city and took up my pen elsewhere. Oxford and its waterways was always there, always in the background, always beautiful. It is the city of my fathers, and mothers, and has been for generations into the past. I live elsewhere now, but will always love Oxford.

Which means I will always love the rivers that are such an important part of the city. At the lowest point of the whole Thames Valley, Oxford is where the rivers meet. Water and the city are interdependent, even if sometimes the waters are too generously provided. But you could not have Oxford without them.

Now those waters have been poisoned. By crass, greedy and irredeemably stupid criminals who know nothing about what is important in life and care nothing for those who do. I want them caught and shamed, but I cannot conceive of a punishment that would be severe enough. These are people unable to imagine the level of my anger – they are probably too stupid.

I posted on Twitter that the perpetrators should be sentenced to hard labour in perpetuity, to cleaning up the waste manually, with shovel and wheelbarrow, for the rest of their lives. Such a sentence would be appropriate.

But unfortunately it would not help the river. The waste mountain has to be removed and disposed of quickly. Doing so will cost a fortune, no doubt. But it has to be done as soon as possible if Oxford’s river systems are to have a chance of recovery. Leaving such waste in position for any time is unthinkable – the city’s watercourses will be poisoned for a generation.

So I say to the Environment Agency, remove the waste now. Then we find the criminals. And don’t sentence them to prison – deport them. They can go live in a country where people do not value their environment and are happy to live, and die, in a toxic soup. There are plenty to choose from. But don’t destroy the few good things left in one humble part of my hometown.

See also

New Statesman: At Oxfordshire’s waste mountain, a national monument to greed The ‘Cherwell Trash Heap’ named here is probably destined to sicken all who hear it in more ways than one.

© Philip Hunt 2025