Residents have been promised that the “dirty, litter-filled and polluted” Welsh Harp Reservoir will be cleaned up.

The reservoir, which straddles the border of Barnet and Brent and is managed by the Canal & River Trust (CRT), is an important breeding site for waterbirds, including the rare great crested grebe.

However, earlier this year Barnet councillor Anne Clark told the Post that “successive failures” have allowed the green space to become a “disgrace” choked with litter, which could affect local wildlife.

Now the Welsh Harp Strategy Group – made up of Barnet Council, the CRT and other authorities – have promised to improve the reservoir by asking “what local people would like to see the Welsh Harp become”. Residents had until 22nd October to have their say by filling in an online form.

CRT’s London director Ros Daniels said the trust is “grateful to those in the community who stepped forward to help start the process of making improvements”.

One member of the community who has campaigned about the state of the reservoir is Ben Watt, one half of pop duo Everything But The Girl, who posted photos of rubbish in the reservoir on his blog.

In January, water levels were lowered for maintenance work, revealing a swamp of supermarket trolleys, traffic cones and plastics, discarded and left to block the waterways, which he labelled an “environmental crisis” in a post that he wrote at the time.

Now, Ben is encouraged that the Welsh Harp Strategy group are taking action. He told the Post that CRT, Barnet Council and Brent Council “were asleep at the wheel until we started our campaign in January this year. Neglect had become endemic.”

But he is “pleased” that money from The West Hendon estate regeneration project is now “being spent on a serious visioning project with credible architect-strategists DK-CM at the helm to hopefully ensure the rest of this money can be wisely spent”. He also gave credit to CRT.

He said: “CRT have been the most responsive to our campaign in this area; both CEO Richard Parry, and Heritage and Environment Manager Neil Earnshaw have been fully engaged this year, making several visits. Funding has been sourced for a dredging survey, further winter plastic pollution removal and improved information signage. It is a good start.”

In June, Cllr Clarke had said of the Reservoir that it: “is a disgrace, and it has been allowed to become dirty, litter filled and polluted by successive failures. Barnet Council’s Conservative administration voted against plans drawn up by the Labour group to clean it up and employ a specialist officer.”

Ben, also, shared his concerns that the Conservative council do not take the environment seriously saying: “I do worry many of Barnet’s Tory councillors only pay lip service to environmental issues. The council has no biodiversity officer or biodiversity plan or ranger schemes – none of this helps.”

He continued: “serious damage will be done by the new proposed Silk Stream footbridge linking the new estate with West Hendon playing fields, and Natural England must use all their powers of veto to ensure there is a genuine net biodiversity gain from the ecological mitigation obligations post-construction, wherever it is finally built.”

“The north marsh is not a derelict littered no-man’s land that is being done a favour by Barnet and Barratt’s. It is actually a neglected overgrown nationally-important Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI); it must not be allowed to become an ornamental pond for private housing.”

A Barnet Council spokesperson said: “The Silk Stream Bridge has been designed to avoid negative ecological impacts. Planning permission for its construction was approved in 2018 – after consultation with the Environment Agency, Canal & River Trust, Natural England and others. The London Wildlife Trust independently reviewed the proposals for planners, and an ecologist was retained and involved in the design of the bridge to protect wildlife in the SSSI.

“The 180m Silk Stream Bridge will create a ‘treetop’ walk across the river, linking West Hendon Playing Fields to more than 2,000 new homes and a new school. The construction of the bridge will provide an opportunity to remove invasive species, such as Himalayan balsam, from the area, improve wildlife habitats and enhance biodiversity. It will also create new pedestrian routes, linking residents to the open spaces of the Welsh Harp.”

A spokesperson from Canal and River Trust said: “The Welsh Harp Reservoir is a tremendously important asset for the local community and wildlife habitat for wetland birds who visit and nest at the reservoir each spring.

“We faced a number of challenges, with fly-tipped rubbish coming into the reservoir from other water sources and an extremely difficult working environment with rubbish trapped in deep mud and shifting silt, requiring specialist contractors to remove, and operating with fewer people than usual due to Covid restrictions. As the reservoir is a Site of Special Scientific Interest, we also had to meet environmental regulations to return water levels to normal by the end of February in time for the bird breeding season.

“There was an incredible effort from volunteers from the local community working with us to help clean the site. As the reservoir refilled, we brought pontoons on-site to help to remove the larger items of rubbish and, once lockdown restrictions eased, we were able to step up the clean-up. During early March we removed four boatloads of large items, two boatloads of small and bagged items, and two skips of debris, as well as continuing to clear larger debris throughout the month. Thank you to everyone who helped us in this massive undertaking.”

The new joint vision for the reservoir will be led by CRT, Brent and Barnet Councils, the Greater London Authority, Thames21, London Wildlife Trust, the Environment Agency, and Natural England.