A STREAM which was once known as Leyton's Green Jewel is being ruined by pollution and litter.

The Dagenham Brook goes past the Lammas school in Seymour Road, Leyton, and a number of the pupils have joined with the New Lammas Lands Defence Committee to campaign for a clean-up of the brook.

Katy Andrews, the chair of the committee, visited the brook with children last week and was disgusted at the rubbish that had been left in the stream.

She said: "The brook was just a trickle of filthy water, and upstream the water's surface was actually shiny from all the pollution."

She added: "It's not something local people can easily do anything about.

"Apart from the hazard to health that the pollution might pose, there are far too many large items of rubbish caught up there to be removed easily."

At one point, where a stream flows west from the brook, a tree had fallen into the river and was trapping litter, clothing and other debris, and effectively acting as a dam.

The schoolchildren are hoping to see the brook changed into a haven for a wide range of wildlife, but that seems a long way off at the moment.

The committee has had discussions with Hazel Walsh, the conservation officer for Waltham Forest, and has been informed that the situation was a priority for the Environment Agency, because the blockage was a flood risk.

A spokeswoman for the Environment Agency replied: "Our officers removed the tree that had fallen down last Wednesday.

"They did not find anything else that would constitute a flood risk. We don't have the time or the money to beautify the area and it is not up to us to move litter."

The brook has been the victim of pollution before, when Parkdale Investments Ltd, which owns the Forest Works Industrial Estate, was fined £5,000 by Waltham Forest Magistrates Court after it allowed sewage to seep into the stream in June 2000.