Rights for the River Medway

This July, our friends at Friends of the River Medway (FoRM) are doing something a bit extraordinary. They're lacing up their boots, gathering good people, and walking the entire length of the River Medway - from its quiet source in Sussex all the way to its wide mouth on the Kent coast.

And they’re doing it not just for the steps, but for something far bigger: the river itself.

From 19–27 July, they’re leading a pilgrimage for the River Medway, calling for clean water, community connection, and the radical idea that rivers should have rights too.

Rights to flow. To thrive. To not be treated like an open sewer.

A Moving Festival (Literally)

This isn’t just a walk. It’s a full-on, multi-sensory, boots-on-the-ground festival. Expect:

• Feasts made with ingredients grown along the riverbanks (that’s local with a capital L)
• Art and sound installations created with Greenwich University
• Singing, storytelling, and a documentary to capture the journey
• Citizen science workshops and litter-picking (science meets sleeves rolled up)
• The River-loo-tion – a compost loo on tour, highlighting the 17,000 litres of drinking water each of us flushes every year (and what that means for our waterways)

And yes, there will be plenty of joyful, muddy-footed moments in between.

Rights for Rivers? Yes, Please.

At the heart of this pilgrimage is something powerful: a proposed Charter for the Rights of the River Medway.

Inspired by river rights movements across the globe—from New Zealand’s Whanganui River to Colombia’s Atrato—it’s a call for legal recognition of the river as a living entity. Not a resource. Not a drain. A being with the right to flow clean, free and unpolluted.

Two local councils are already on board:

• Wealden District Council, passed a historic motion supporting Rights for Rivers on 17 July, led by Rachel Millward - Deputy Leader, Green Party deputy leader candidate, and one of FoRM’s founding members.
• Maidstone Borough Council, led by long-time river advocate Stuart Jeffery, are also fully backing the cause.

If more councils follow suit, this could be a UK first: a united, cross-county pledge to protect a river's rights. Because nature doesn’t do boundaries, and neither should our efforts to protect it.

Want to Get Involved?

You can! And you absolutely should. The pilgrimage runs from 19–27 July, beginning in Forest Row (Sussex) and ending at the Hoo Peninsula (Kent). Along the way there’ll be events, food, stories, and loads of ways to join in—whether you're walking, clapping, or cheering from your phone.

Visit formedway.org/projects/from-source-to-sea and follow on Instagram: @formedway_

At Toast, we raise a glass to bold ideas that bring people together and protect the planet. The folks at FoRM are walking the walk, and we’re 100% behind them.

Let’s protect what connects us. River by river. Pint by pint.