A new 'dog-dip' has been installed at Kneller Gardens in Twickenham with Richmond Council encouraging dog walkers to use the crossing point rather than letting their pets get into the river further upstream.

This "long-awaited improvement" to the park will allow walkers to cross Duke of Northumberland's River and aims to "discourage and reduce disturbance at the location of the Mereway fish ladder", where migratory fish bypass the weir to access spawning grounds further up in the catchment. 

Park users are encouraged to make use of the new dog-dip as an alternative to allowing their dogs to access the river further upstream, in order to "protect fish and wildfowl and reduce bank erosion".

The council said: "The dog-dip has been designed with a two-tiered platform, which reduces the gradient of the slope and contains the rising water during periods of high flow.

"The surrounding area has been gently landscaped using the excavated spoil and sown with amenity grass seed.

"The adjacent riverbanks have also been repaired where they had previously become heavily eroded." 

During the next few months, local volunteers from the Friends of Meadway Orchard will be carrying out further improvement works to the area on both sides of the river, hedge-laying and constructing dead hedges to protect the bank.