Wild Waters Festival

The inaugural ‘Wild Waters Festival’ took place in June. The town and parishes involved were those that lie along the Bristol River Avon or its local tributaries from and including Bradford on Avon to Batheaston, as well as Box, Colerne, Frome and Wingfield.

The aims of the festival were to provide opportunity to celebrate our communities and nature, whilst drawing attention to the pressures on the river due to climate change and loss of nature and to encourage local people to take positive action in response.

42 events were held during the festival across 14 communities. There was a rich variety of well attended events.

There were screenings of films, talks, walks, art exhibitions, fly fishing demonstrations, a library exhibition, a pub quiz and so on.

It seemed to the organisers that our grassroots approach led to effective engagement with our respective communities and that the events provided in each were authentic in their response to their connection to the river.

We gathered evidence of feeling a sense of responsibility, not just those who organised the festival who maintain this notion through their roles as climate leads, but also in those attending. Along with clear intentions set by participants to improve their own actions in the fight against the climate and nature emergencies, and to seek out opportunities to become further involved.