The lifeboat left Chiswick Pier on 22 September after nearly 25 years. It is now Wandsworth Riverside, with 5,600 incidents and 2,500 rescues behind it.
Chiswick’s lifeboat station has gone. The crew started operating from Wandsworth on Tuesday 22 September 2026, and the station is now called Wandsworth Riverside. The RNLI confirmed it on its own station page: “Chiswick Lifeboat Station relocated to Wandsworth Riverside on Tuesday 22nd September 2026.”
It had been at Chiswick Pier for nearly 25 years, since the RNLI started its search and rescue service on the tidal Thames in January 2002.
We have been following this move since the appeal launched, and for two years the missing piece was a date. There is now a date, and it has passed.
What the crew did from Chiswick
The numbers in the RNLI’s 21 September news release are the fullest account the charity has published of what the station achieved from Corney Reach.
Since 2002 the station has attended over 5,600 incidents and rescued over 2,500 people. In 2026 alone, before the move, its crews attended 212 incidents from Chiswick. The RNLI describes it as the second busiest lifeboat station in the UK and Ireland (RNLI, 21 September 2026).
Why they left a building they had been in since 2002
The RNLI’s account of the old station is unsentimental. The four Thames stations opened in January 2002 “after a very short lead in time using what locations and facilities were immediately available”. At Chiswick that meant sharing a building with the Chiswick Pier Trust.
What the crew put up with, in the charity’s own words:
- meeting rooms, kitchen and toilets were shared spaces
- the kit room “was just a small cupboard”
- the 60 volunteers “had to take their kit home after every shift”
The search for somewhere permanent started soon after the service began. Sketch plans were drawn up for a floating station in two locations. It took 20 years for the Wandsworth building to come free.
That building was originally the sales centre for the Riverside Quarter development. It became offices, then needed a change of use and a full refit before it could be a lifeboat station.
The RNLI says the new station has over ten times the floor space of the leased part of the Chiswick building. It has a kit room with hanging space for every volunteer, a dedicated meeting and training room, bunk and rest rooms for each duty and off-duty crew, and an open plan crew room with a galley for crews working 12-hour shifts around the clock. A public engagement space on the ground floor has its own entrance, separate from the operational part of the building, for water safety and education visits and retail sales.
Does Chiswick lose its lifeboat cover?
No, and the RNLI addresses this directly. The crews “will continue to operate in the same patch between Battersea and Richmond so will still be a familiar sight along the riverside in Chiswick”.
The charity’s case for moving has always been that the boat ends up closer to the work. Around 70 per cent of the station’s shouts are eastwards, towards central London, and the RNLI estimates the move will cut its average emergency response time by 1 minute and 20 seconds (RNLI, Wandsworth Riverside appeal).
That figure is an average across all launches. The RNLI has not published a separate response time for the river at Chiswick, Strand on the Green or Kew, so a shout at this end of the patch is not covered by it either way.
The moorings themselves are slightly better. The pier at Wandsworth is a Thames Clipper stop with houseboats, and part of the existing jetty was upgraded for the duty and standby lifeboats. The boats sit in sight of the first floor crew room, and the RNLI says they are slightly nearer than the jetty at Chiswick was.
The appeal page has not caught up
One loose end. The RNLI’s own Wandsworth Riverside appeal page, read on 24 September, still describes the crew as “currently based in Chiswick” and the lease as “now concluding”. It is two days out of date.
The money position on that page is unchanged. The project cost £3.5 million, up from an original £2.9 million, and the appeal is still asking the public for the final £300,000. The charity says the rise came from inflation, the need to replace external doors and glazing, and adding renewable technology. Anything raised beyond £3.5 million goes to RNLI lifesaving work across the UK and Ireland.
The release also does not say what becomes of the space the lifeboat crew vacated at the Pier House.
What it means for you
- The contact details have changed. The station is now Wandsworth Riverside Lifeboat Station, 90 Point Pleasant, Wandsworth, SW18 1PP, on 0203 010 5046. The old Chiswick number is no longer the station’s.
- In an emergency on the Thames, dial 999 and ask for the Coastguard. That instruction sits at the top of the station’s own page and has not changed with the move.
- You will still see the boats at Chiswick. The patch runs from Battersea to Richmond, which puts Strand on the Green, Chiswick Mall and the Kew reach squarely inside it.
- The appeal is still open, with £300,000 of the £3.5 million outstanding.
- If you volunteer or fundraise for the station, the public engagement space at Wandsworth is the new base for water safety and education visits, with a river terrace for summer events.
We have updated our earlier article on the move and the money behind it, which set out the two years in which no date was published.
Related
- Chiswick RNLI volunteer awarded a Met commendation: one of the station’s crew, recognised earlier this month.
- Things to do in Chiswick, including the riverside walks the lifeboat still covers.
Sources
- RNLI, Chiswick RNLI becomes Wandsworth Riverside RNLI, 21 September 2026, for the 22 September start date, the shared building with the Chiswick Pier Trust, the cupboard kit room and the 60 volunteers taking kit home, the ten times floor space, the room-by-room description of the new station, the upgraded jetty, the Battersea to Richmond patch, the 212 incidents in 2026, the 5,600 incidents and 2,500 people rescued since 2002, and the second busiest station description.
- RNLI, Wandsworth Riverside Lifeboat Station, read 24 September 2026, for the line confirming the relocation date, the new address at 90 Point Pleasant and the station telephone number.
- RNLI, Wandsworth Riverside Lifeboat Station Appeal, read 24 September 2026, for the £3.5 million project cost, the rise from £2.9 million and its stated reasons, the outstanding £300,000, station manager Wayne Bellamy’s quoted estimate of 1 minute 20 seconds and the 70 per cent of shouts eastwards, and for the page still describing the crew as based in Chiswick.
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