Following yesterday’s Channel 4 News investigation, which reported that nearly 6,000 Category 1 and 2 pollution incidents involving water companies were downgraded without direct inspection between 2015 and 2025, while prosecution rates for more than 11,400 pollution incidents over the past decade were reportedly around 0.5%, CEO of River Action James Wallace said:
“We are deeply concerned that thousands of the most serious pollution incidents in England have been downgraded without direct inspection over the past decade.
“These findings raise profound questions about the state of environmental enforcement in England and whether regulators are being properly resourced and empowered to uphold the law.
“This is not about the commitment of frontline Environment Agency staff, many of whom are working under immense pressure after years of cuts and underfunding. It is about political failure to provide regulators with the resources, independence and legal backing needed to properly investigate and prosecute environmental offences.
“The consequences are severe. Pollution incidents go unchecked, environmental damage escalates, public confidence collapses, and polluters avoid meaningful accountability while rivers, lakes and coastal waters continue to deteriorate.
“We need an Environment Agency that is properly funded, fully independent and capable of urgently responding to serious pollution incidents. We also need faster prosecutions and penalties severe enough to deter polluters from treating environmental harm as simply another cost of doing business.
“But even with regulatory reform, nothing will change until the privatised water industry has been restructured for public benefit. Anything less risks continuing the normalisation of environmental harm on an industrial scale.”
Notes on River Action’s funding model
River Action does not accept funding from the Government or polluters. That independence allows us to hold power to account without fear or favour.