Celebrities and politicians joined forces to mark the official launch of an alliance to help save an unspoilt stretch of the riverbank from seven years of construction misery.

The Save Barn Elms Alliance was launched at the playing fields last Friday to bolster the campaign to protect the site between Putney and Barnes from being built on as part of the Thames Tunnel project.

Impressionist Alistair McGowan, TV presenter Peter Snow and actress Caroline Langrishe posed for photos with campaign group Stop the Shaft, Wandsworth and Richmond Councils, MPs Justine Greening and Zac Goldsmith and GLA members Richard Tracey and Tony Arbour to start the campaign.

Campaigners have been fighting the plans to build on Barn Elms since Thames Water earmarked it as the 'preferred' location for a giant excavation and waste transfer compound in November.

The event was staged just days after the launch of the Thames Tunnel Commission which is tasked to review the suitability of London’s new super sewer plans and see if there are better alternatives.

Boroughs along the Thames riverside, including Southwark and Kensington and Chelsea have lent support to the initiative.

But Wandsworth Council, has decided not to join at this point arguing that people power is the best way to protest the Barn Elms site.

On Friday Alistair McGowan said: “I’m one of over 12,200 people raising their voice in objection to Thames Water turning this beautiful green space into a ‘Super Sewer’ construction site.

“Barn Elms is a vital community resource, the playing fields and boat house alone used by over 30 schools and 40 sports clubs.

"To ruin thousands of people’s access to outdoor recreation and enjoyment when there is a viable brownfield alternative site is outrageous, it’s maddening that communities have to fight tooth and nail to protect such important areas but fight we will.”

Campaigners have stressed they are not opposing the Thames Tunnel ‘super sewer’ project as a whole, only the use of an unspoilt beauty spot as one of the main tunnelling sites.

Thames Water says it has not yet made a final decision on where to base the tunnelling site and is also considering an alternative brownfield location in Fulham.

The second round of public consultation on the tunnel will start in September.