Chesham Environmental Group

08/06/2026

Even though we were not working near the River Chess last week, we still got fairly wet as the expected rain began minutes after we had started work on the clearance of the vegetation on Jacob’s Ladder.  

We had 8 people volunteering with us, including two that had been given the time off work by their employers to work on an environmental enhancement project in the local area. More volunteering days please!

Our main focus was w**ding and tidying the historic steps. Of course we also did a small litter pick, collecting 2 bags of cans and bottles for recycling, 1 bag of general waste, 2 aerosol cans and 3 vapes. We labelled these clearly as the results of a litter pick and let Bucks Council know to collect (thanks BC!)

22/05/2026

This week a few volunteers from Chesham Environmental Group and the Chiltern Society spent a couple of hours in the side stream running at the north end of Chesham Moor.

They were there to clear a meandering channel through the excess growth of vegetation that has encroached on the River Chess side stream (mostly water parsnip, water cress and sweet grass).

This is part of the normal management plan agreed between the relevant organisations for this recently restored section of the River Chess, and this helps to keep the water flowing at a sufficient rate. The risings were placed on the banks to let the invertebrates return to the water. A few before and afters in these pics! 😎

18/05/2026

It was our second work party of May yesterday and we had a very hard working group of 10 people come to volunteer with us near Cannon Mill. This number included two Juniors, one of whom is working towards their Duke of Edinburgh award. Two of the group were volunteering with us for the first time - welcome and thank you to those new volunteers!

The focus of the session was to remove some of the obstructions to flow in the River Chess and to cut back some of the overhanging vegetation to let more light through to the watercourse. 

We also carried out a litter pick in the local area. Two full bags of cans and bottles were collected for recycling and 4 bags of disposable waste together with one large gas canister and two vapes. We left these bags clearly labelled as the result of a litter pick for Bucks Council to collect (thanks BC!)

08/05/2026

The Queens Head pub is a fine watering hole, not least because of the River Chess runs past it, which is currently flowing strongly and looking lovely! 15 Chesham Environmental Group volunteers worked at this spot earlier this week, and continued downstream along Water Lane, to ease the flow of the river. Some donned waders and got into the water with w**d rakes, and some preferred to stay dry and went off litter picking. Both are valuable tasks!
 
Water crowfoot, water parsnip, and yellow flag iris whilst being generally very good for river health, does need to be trimmed back periodically. If this is not done a little and often, then the river can become constricted and this risks localised flooding along the footpaths beside the river. We leave most of the vegetation in place in the river, where it is a great habitat for wildlife, and we cut a meandering channel through the vegetation.
 
Some of the vegetation we have removed (water crowfoot) was taken to be “planted” further downstream where it is needed. The rest of the removed vegetation is placed on the banks, out of public view, so that any invertebrates caught up in it can crawl back into the river. Then the vegetation naturally breaks down and serves as natural compost.
 
We also litter picked in and along the river, and collected 6 full bags of rubbish, and some fly-tipped material (discarded wheel, batteries, BBQ grill). We notify the Waste Team at Bucks Council to come and collect for us and we ensure everything is clearly labelled so it doesn’t look like fly tipping.

Here you can see a few photos showing our volunteers in action, and photos of the results of our work.

02/05/2026

We have an ever growing number of volunteers from the Chilterns National Landscape Chilterns Chalk Streams Project Chiltern SocietyChesham Environmental Group working on the Chess. Some are being recognise with plaques going up around Chesham. Here is one being installed by John, another volunteer, recognising all the great work done by Andrew. Among other roles Andrew has been a Riverfly Partnership monitor for 17 years and along with Ken Austin found the Winterbourne Stonefly, the first record for Buckinghamshire, in the Chess outside the The Queen's Head, Chesham . All the art work was done by the very talented local artist Helen Capewell.

Chesham Town Council

28/04/2026

🌸 CHESHAM IN BLOOM 🌸

Chesham in Bloom have a plant sale on the 23rd May from 9.30am-12pm on the steps in front of the United Reformed Church in Chesham. Please come along and support, please bring cash and a bag to take your plants away with!

28/04/2026

CEG volunteers met in the Community Orchard in Lowndes park yesterday to tidy up the orchard in preparation for the summer. It was a lovely sunny day. Perfect for a picnic in fact, if we had come for a restful time among the blossoming trees. Except we knew that we had our work cut out for us! 😊
 
Under the guidance of Phil Harrison of Sustainable Chesham, we undertook the following tasks;
* removed any dead or diseased branches from the fruit trees
* scythed tall grass to clear some paths between the fruit trees
* various groundworks around the orchard
 
Do visit the orchard yourself, especially in August/September when the fruit will be ripe for picking.
You can learn more about the orchard through a blog on our website.
 
We also litter picked around Lowndes Park.  We were pleased to find that there was much less litter compared to previous visits. So we only collected 3 full bags of rubbish, including from the surrounding streets and play areas. We also found a school blazer, which we will be handing into the adjacent secondary school, as somebody must be missing it!
 
CEG has notified the Waste Team at Bucks Council about this litter, so that they can schedule the bags to be removed (thanks BC!). The bags are also labelled clearly as being the result of a litter pick (so as not to cause anyone to think this is some new fly tipping).

22/04/2026

20/04/2026

Captains Wood is currently awash with lovely English bluebells, white wood anemones and yellow celandine. If you were in the woods yesterday, you would have also noticed that it was awash with litter pickers! A total of 23 volunteers came out to clear Captains Wood and the surrounding area of litter and fly tipping.
 
We collected 16 full bags of rubbish, including from the surrounding streets and play areas:

* 5 bags of recyclables in blue bags
* 11 bags of general rubbish in purple bags
 
When we litter pick, ask our litter pickers to ensure that they fill each bin bag is filled as full as possible.
In addition, at the end of a litter picking session we will consolidate any part-filled bags into one, so we can re-use bags. This is to reduce the number of single-use plastic bin bags we consume in each litter pick, saving an estimated 100 bin bags/year. These bin bags are supplied to CEG by Buckinghamshire Council, and are made from recycled plastic.
 
Our litter pickers also collected the following items:

* 14 nitrous oxide gas canisters
* 15 cigarette lighters and disposable vapes placed in a clear bag
* 2 tyres
* 2 footballs
* 1 car hubcap
* Various metal, plastic and wood objects
* A large stash of ‘Your Chesham’ magazines which looked many months old. The person dumping them had deprived many households of an excellent read!

These were all placed beside the bin bags.
 
CEG notified the Waste Team at Bucks Council about this collection, so that they can schedule them to be removed (thanks BC!). The bags are also labelled clearly as being the result of a litter pick (so as not to cause anyone to think this is some new fly tipping).

09/04/2026

Last week our CEG volunteers met up in the Co-op field for another work party. This was to continue a re-wilding project that was initiated by CEG 4 years ago in partnership with Chesham & District Natural History Society.
 
We were guided by Trevor Brawn, our biodiversity lead, to do some maintenance work in the field. This work included:

* Removing encroaching grass and stones from the bee scrape (which like the Great Wall of China is visible from space, but you do have to zoom in on Google Earth)
* Repairing damage to the scrape bank
* Removing grass from the herb garden
* Adding sticks of wood to the bug hotel
* Scything a patch of grass and raking it up
* Checking on the slow worm mats
 
As well as undertaking this biodiversity work, we were augmented by a wonderful group of geocachers (8 in total) who come from further afield to litter pick with us. In addition to those who join us regularly from High Wycombe and Pinner, today we had a couple who had travelled from Hampshire. We are so grateful for their support.

The litter picking activity filled 20 bin bags (12 blue bags containing recyclables, and 8 purple bags containing general litter). We also collected also 6 nitrous oxide canisters. All of these were placed carefully by the roadside, and labelled as an official litter pick, for the Bucks Council waste team to collect (thank you BC, as always!).
 
We also found a discarded weapon (a dagger shaped lock-knife), which we handed in to the police.