The RNLI said its Wandsworth base would run in 2025. It opened on 22 September 2026, the bill reached £3.5m, and the appeal still needs £300,000.
Update, 24 September 2026: the move has happened. The crew started operating from Wandsworth on 22 September 2026 and the station is now Wandsworth Riverside. See our report on the move and the Chiswick record behind it. The article below was written on 30 August 2026, when no date had been published, and is kept as the record of that wait.
The RNLI’s Chiswick lifeboat station is leaving Corney Reach for a new base three miles downstream at Wandsworth. Almost two years after the charity launched the appeal to pay for it, no opening date has been published.
The station has been operating from the Pier House at Chiswick Pier since the RNLI began its search and rescue service on the tidal Thames in January 2002. The charity’s own appeal page puts it bluntly: the crew have spent that whole time “launching to rescue from a very small, shared building that isn’t fit for purpose”, and the lease “is now concluding”.
What the RNLI has not said is when the boat actually goes.
What was promised, and when
The charity bought the former marketing building in Wandsworth Riverside Quarter in late 2023 and won planning permission to change its use to a lifeboat station. When it launched the fundraising appeal on 4 November 2024, the release ended with a firm line: “The new station is expected to become operational later in 2025.”
That date passed. The most recent update, published on 31 July 2026, describes glazed screens going in, a kitchen being fitted and work continuing on the pontoon. It says the station and pontoon “will undergo a thorough testing programme of all the equipment and services before becoming fully operational”. It names no month and no year.
The bill has grown in the meantime. A footnote on the appeal page says the total cost of the work “has risen from £2.9M to £3.5M”, blaming inflation plus the need to replace the external doors and glazing and to add “vital renewable technology”. A bequest covers most of it. The final £300,000 is the part the appeal is still asking the public for, which is the same figure the RNLI published in November 2024.
The station is still working from Chiswick
Nothing has stopped in the meantime. The RNLI’s launch record for the station lists launches on 23, 25, 26, 27, 28 and 29 August 2026, all by the station’s E-class lifeboats.
The scale of the operation is the reason the move matters. According to the appeal page, using figures from January 2002 to 10 April 2024, the station had recorded:
- 4,616 launches
- 193 lives saved
- 2,538 people aided
- more than 65 volunteer crew
By July 2026 the RNLI was putting it higher still, at “over 5,000 incidents” and “over 2,500 people” rescued. The charity describes Chiswick as the second busiest lifeboat station in the UK and Ireland. It is one of four RNLI stations on the Thames, and the crews work 12-hour shifts, sleep on station and are expected to launch within 90 seconds.
Why Wandsworth
The case for moving is about geography, not comfort. Wayne Bellamy, the station manager, is quoted on the appeal page saying that around 70% of the station’s shouts are eastwards, towards central London, and that the RNLI estimates the new base “will reduce our average emergency response time by 1 minute and 20 seconds”.
Wandsworth Pier is three miles downstream of Chiswick. It is a stop on the Thames Clipper river bus and has residential moorings, and the RNLI is upgrading part of it to give the duty and standby lifeboats dedicated berths.
The new building gives the crew far more room, on the RNLI’s own account. The 31 July release describes a training and meeting room, rest space for crews between shifts, and a visitor centre with folding glazed doors onto a river-facing deck, for water safety sessions with school and community groups.
What it means for you
- Cover is not being withdrawn. The lifeboat moves three miles east; it does not stop covering the Chiswick reach.
- The RNLI’s 1 minute 20 figure is an average across all shouts, and the charity’s stated reason for it is that most incidents are already east of Chiswick. It has not published a separate figure for response times to the river at Chiswick, Strand on the Green or Kew.
- There is still no published moving date. (It was later confirmed as 22 September 2026.) If you are planning anything at Chiswick Pier around the handover, the station’s own contact number is 020 8995 5534.
- In an emergency on the Thames, dial 999 and ask for the Coastguard. That is the instruction the RNLI carries at the top of the station’s own page, and it does not change with the move.
- The appeal is still open at the RNLI’s Wandsworth Riverside page, with £300,000 of the £3.5m outstanding.
Every figure above comes from the RNLI’s own pages, linked in the text. The charity published the moving date on 21 September 2026, and we have reported it separately in Chiswick Lifeboat Station moved to Wandsworth on 22 September.
For more on the river at Chiswick, see our guide to Tidefest at Strand on the Green on 6 September, and our roundup of things to do in Chiswick.
Have your say