Statement from The Sharks

Price rises at Thamesmead

Unfortunately we are going to have to increase our prices at Thamesmead, to £7 per session from August 1st 2026, this will bring the prices into line with other sites.

About us

The Sharks are a not-for-profit Community Interest Company, all our revenue is re-invested in the community project we run. There are no share holders. We do pay our staff and do have other running costs, but nobody is making a profit.

However, we do need to finance the Club to ensure we are sustainable and can keep serving our members and the wider public and it is for this reason we have been forced to raise prices. From August 1st 2026 a new price stricture is in place for kayaking and canoeing:

Local Thamesmead residents will be charged at £7 per person and non-local people at £8 per person. This is in keeping with an agreement with our Landlords, Peabody, to provide discounted services to local people.

Background

When we agreed to set up an activity centre at Southmere, there were many aspects to what we wanted to do and what Peabody wanted, we had agreed a 25-year programme, which would see The Sharks invest in the local area to provide first class facilities for the people of Thamesmead.

We were to establish a multi- sport watersports centre at Southmere and an open water swimming project at Birchmere. This would involved:

  • Recreational Sessions
  • Competitive opportunities
    • Racing
    • Slalom
    • Canoe Polo
    • Including Open Water Swimming Races
  • Staging events at Thamesmead in different disciplines and sports

This would provide local people with great affordable opportunities, and bring additional visitors to Thamesmead, who would spend money in local shops and businesses, this would all be very positive for the economy of Thamesmead as well as being beneficial to the physical and mental health of residents.

However, The Shark have been shocked to discover that the lease offer has been cut to 7-years.

What this means is:

We have only seven-years to recoup our investment, instead of 25-years and that means an increase in prices; however, as a not-for-profit organisation we will keep these price rises to a minimum.

One of the main reasons why we sought a 25-year lease was, this would enable us to apply for Lottery funding and enable us to invest a lot of money in this project. However, the short term lease, will now exclude us from being able to access that money, which obviously has knock on effects as to what we can offer local residents.

We will not be able to attract the big events that would have brought visitors to Thamesmead, we had planned to make Thamesmead the home of the London Youth Games canoeing events, but to do this they need some security.

We had spoken with Paddle UK, to establish an annual London Sprint Championships at Thamesmead, however, the would involve investment from then and from us, which would be impossible to get sufficient returns in such a short period of time.

We were also looking at establishing a Canoe Polo Team and Southmere and hosting major events, again the investment in the equipment is no longer viable. However, we will try and work to get a squad together and train at Thamesmead, but will have to play matches elsewhere. But it will still be amazing fun.

We will probably not be able to invest in other sports such as sailing and rowing.

We will continue to establish a flat water slalom course at Southmere, as this has received funding from Paddle UK Slalom.

We will establish an open water swimming project, but at present it is not possible to use Birchmere.

We will

Serve the community and provide some amazing opportunities, we will try and work with Peabody to extend the contract and remain in Thamesmead beyond the expiry of the lease.

You can help

We are driven by our members, so if you join us and help us to make this project as amazing as we want it to be, it will be very difficult to justify ending our tenure.

Published 19th July 2026.