This summer’s Thames Traditional Boat Festival will not go ahead as planned which is hugely disappointing news for not just the organisers but everyone involved, as it is a much loved event on Henley’s social calendar, however, if fallow years are good enough for Glasto, then it’s good enough for The Trad!

The reason behind this year’s pause of the Festival is part of a much bigger story with the long-term protection and renewal of the riverbank at Fawley Meadows, one of the most beautiful settings on the Thames.

In recent months, new requirements surrounding the riverbank works have changed what is possible on the site of the event. The protection scheme at Fawley Meadows has been designed to address serious erosion and to strengthen the bank using softer bio-engineering measures intended to improve biodiversity and preserve the landscape’s natural character. For the Festival, however, the practical effect this year is significant in that the traditional mooring along the bank is no longer possible, and the temporary arrangements once relied upon can no longer be used.

The committee have said that despite exploring alternatives, and having been working closely and constructively with Henley Royal Regatta to identify a safe and workable solution, the end result is that the scale, cost and safety implications of the temporary infrastructure required to keep the event on the water had moved beyond what they felt could reasonably be delivered.

Additionally, the meadows themselves are still recovering. With stretches of loose earth, shingle and mud after the works, the ground is not yet ready to host the kind of experience that festival visitors would expect.

Great news it that The Trad will be back next year Thursday 15th July – Sunday 18th July 2027 – PUT THE DATE IN YOUR DIARY

The committee has said:

“there is, realistically, no instant substitute for Fawley Meadows. Its atmosphere is central to the Festival’s identity, which makes postponement the painful but honest choice…that there is no disguising the disappointment. For organisers, exhibitors, boaters, performers, volunteers and loyal supporters, this promised to be a wonderful year. Yet there is also a more hopeful way to read the moment. Regeneration is rarely graceful in the middle of the process. Before a landscape can recover, it often has to look unsettled first.

If the work at Fawley Meadows is allowed the time it needs, the result could be something genuinely worthwhile, a stronger riverbank, a healthier landscape and a setting that feels renewed rather than merely repaired. Reports on the approved scheme emphasised both erosion control and biodiversity improvement, with an intention to retain the meadow’s softer, more natural appearance. That makes it entirely possible that by next year the site will not simply be usable again, but looking better than ever.

For now, the Festival pauses. But the spirit of it does not. If patience is possible this summer, the reward may well be a return in 2027 to a Fawley Meadows that has regained its poise — greener, steadier and ready once again to provide the backdrop this much-loved event deserves.”

Judy, Lady McAlpine and Adam Toop, and all of the The Thames Traditional Boat Festival Committee