We’re delighted to introduce Henry Shepherd, our new Communities Coordinator, who will be joining Chloe and Erica in our growing Communities Team at River Action. In our latest blog, we get to know more about Henry and the role that he will play to help rescue Britain’s rivers.
Q1. Tell us about yourself
I’m a young, passionate environmentalist and advocate for protecting the natural world upon which my and my generation’s future depends on. I’ve grown up in-and-around nature, and even in my time I have witnessed its dramatic decline.
I’m desperate to protect and restore what little we have left, especially in the UK – not just because we rely upon it every day, but for its intrinsic value and beauty too. This has spurred my interest in the politics of environmental issues.
Most likely as a result of my appreciation of the natural world, I am a keen traveller, always looking to visit new places and have new experiences. Apart from that, I enjoy a good country walk, love a bit of reggae, and still can’t beat a kick-about with my mates at the park.
Q2. How did you become interested in river protection?
From the canals in Birmingham where I went to University, to the Loch’s in the Highlands where I was born, I’ve always been around water. Every train journey, country walk, or road trip, we cross paths with our waterways. They are the veins of our environment running across the land. Their prolific pollution has infuriated me ever since I’ve known. How could we allow such short-sighted carelessness to take place, and even worse, allow people to profit from it?
Turning this frustration and sense of injustice into hope can be hard in a sector in which many feel hopeless. Rivers, however, are a great example of how we really can make a difference. They are woven into so many aspects of our society and economy, uniting a wide range of stakeholders and presenting countless opportunities to play a part in working together towards a solution.
So, whilst their desperate need for a voice was enough to motivate me, the potential for our rivers to set the standard for what people who care about the planet can achieve together also inspired me.
Q3. Tell us about your new role as Communities Coordinator at River Action…what can we expect to see from your role in 2024?
I am excited to be publishing and delivering the River Rescue Kit website, which aims to empower and encourage people from all walks of life to get involved in addressing the dire state of our rivers.
As part of this, I will support and work alongside communities and campaigners to ensure that the new government understands that river pollution is an issue that the public cares about, and one that requires immediate and serious action.
I’m also looking forward to coordinating campaigns at a grassroots level, as part of the Thames Campaign, and I’m keen to establish more community connections in Northern Ireland, North England, and in my homeland, Scotland.
Q4. Finally, in your opinion, what is further needed/what needs to change to rescue Britain’s rivers?
Firstly, for me, it’s an attitudinal shift that is required across certain sectors to one that sees our waterways not as resources to be exploited, but as essential infrastructure underpinning our society, food systems, economy, and our little remaining, wonderful wildlife.
We also need stricter regulation, enforcement of the law, and increased funding – all across the agricultural sector, water sector, and the Environment Agency. This necessitates that precedents be set and lines be drawn by our government and courts to make it clear that the current state of play is not sustainable, and must, and can, change.
To achieve this, we have to continue to use our voices to speak up for our rivers and demand that those in positions of power use their privilege to push for this issue to be addressed as a matter of urgency.
‘When the world ends, someone will have daubed on a wall somewhere “It was the water, stupid” in a parody of Bill Clinton’s famous campaign reminder to his team to remain focused on what matters most.
As an angler I’ve lived all my life in, on or beside water. The rivers, oceans, lakes and ponds that have been my obsession for more than half a century are dying before our eyes. Either sucked dry by our relentless demand for more of this most precious natural resource or engulfed in a tidal wave of sewage and slurry, often both. Short sighted stupidity has been the hallmark of national water policy since before the Industrial Revolution. The current situation is little short of alarming:
Only 14% of our water bodies are now in good ecological condition.
In 2023 a total of 579,581 sewage spills recorded from storm overflows in
England and Wales for a total duration of 4.6 million hours.
Wastewater infrastructure replacement rate for pipes and main sewers is runnin at 0.05% of the network per annum – 10 times longer than the European average – meaning sewers with a 100-year life expectancy are meant to last for 2,000 years.
Environment Agency numbers show that in just the last year at least 120,000 fis were killed in sewage-related pollution incidents – the true figure will likely have been much higher.
The Atlantic salmon is now officially classified as an endangered species in the UK.
With a general election just a week away the condition of our rivers and waterways is higher up the political agenda than it has ever been. This follows years of relentless pressure from energised campaign groups such as Surfers Against Sewage, Angling Trust & Fish Legal, The Rivers Trust, Wildfish, River Action and many angling and local groups across the country, ably supported by celebrity angling activists like Feargal Sharkey, James Murray and Paul Whitehouse. Whilst it’s pleasing for campaigners like me to see our chosen cause front and centre of political debate, what is less encouraging is the failure of all political parties to acknowledge the depth and scale of the problem or to apply any serious thinking as to what needs to be done.
Last year over 579,000 sewage spills were recorded from storm overflows in England and Wales
Soundbites won’t fix our rivers and seas, but here’s 12 things that will make a difference if we elect a government with the guts to do what’s necessary.
1) Recognise that there is no such thing as cheap water
My local water company, Thames Water, provides my three-bedroomed, semi-detached house in Reading with clean, drinkable water for a little over £1 a day. Absurdly, I can also use this heavily-treated liquid to water my garden, wash my car, and to flush my toilet. Speaking of which, my bodily waste is also taken away and allegedly treated before being discharged as effluent back into the same river system from which it came. That same pound will scarcely buy a bottle of water in a supermarket, or a glass of the stuff with added bubbles in a restaurant, yet people regularly hand over wads of cash without a second thought for both, even though what comes out of their taps costs almost nothing.
Water for almost nothing is no basis on which to build public policy about a basic resource on which all life depends, human, animal, bird or fish. Water needs to become as political in Britain as it is in other countries where living conditions are far harsher. Look behind many of the conflicts and tensions in the world today and what do you find? Conflict over water. Too much of it, causing sea levels to rise as we fail to heed the warnings of climate change and more of the earth’s surface becomes uninhabitable. Too little of it, as warming temperatures turn once productive regions into searing dust bowls, causing millions of our fellow human beings to begin a giant migration in search of livable land.
2) Tackle the investment backlog
In 2021, my organisation jointly published a report looking at the sheer scale of the investment backlog facing the water industry. Called ‘Time to Fix the Broken Water Sector’, it exposed the ticking timebomb at the heart of the UK’s wastewater infrastructure that threatens the health of almost every river and stream in the land. The key finding were:
A £10 billion investment funding gap over the last 10 years.
The declining condition of rivers and streams due to increased sewage spills every year.
The absurd expectation of a 2,000-year lifetime for sewage pipes and other infrastructure.
Failure to build any new reservoirs in the south-east since 1976 despite a 3 million population increase and huge projected growth in house building.
Lack of investment in water supply has seen excessive groundwater abstraction drying up some chalk streams altogether and damaging many other rivers.
The impossibility of delivering commitments in the Government’s own 25 Year
Environment Plan and our legal obligation under the Water Framework Directive.
Failure of both the Government and OFWAT to heed the promises in the 2011 water white paper, or indeed the warnings from the National Infrastructure
Commission and the National Audit Office, about the pressing need for investment in water and sewerage systems to address the challenges of climate change and population growth.
The prospect of severe drought events causing parts of southern England to run out of water within 20 years.
The consequences of failing to invest in water infrastructure that will cost more in the long term – £40 billion versus £21 billion, and thousands of jobs.
Much of this sorry state was triggered by the politicians’ wish to kick the can down the road rather than face up to the looming water crisis. And behind all of this has been the thoroughly useless regulator OFWAT whose former Chief Executive and previous water industry fat cat, Johnson Cox, promised in 2017 – ‘a decade of declining water bills.’ He did this at a time when OFWAT had neither the engineering nor environmental expertise to make these judgements, unless, of course, you didn’t give a fig for the environmental consequences. As a result, the price limits were set so low that under-investment was inevitable, making a bad situation worse.
It is patently absurd to have two regulators allegedly overseeing the water industry. You can’t separate the consequences of economic regulation (OFWAT) from the impacts on the water environment (Environment Agency). The consequences of the OFWAT investment roadblock are plain to see. Here are a few examples:
OFWAT directly cut planned investment in PR19 (between 2020-24) by £6.7 billion (or £1.34bn each year). They even boasted about the size of investment they had prohibited water companies from making.
OFWAT held down bills below inflation for over a decade, removing around £11 billion from investment that should have been ring-fenced for improvements.
Allowing bills to increase with inflation over the last decade would have provided more for investment, which could have been ring-fenced for the most urgent projects. This would have been the equivalent of sufficient funding for up to half a dozen reservoirs or meeting overflow targets five years earlier.
OFWAT decisions overturned. Four companies successfully appealed their PR19 decisions to the Competitions and Markets Authority (CMA) who ruled as follows to:
Restore £7 million for Yorkshire Water to cut overflow spills, deliver wastewater upgrades, and the protection of tens of thousands of properties in Hull against flooding.
Restore £18.3 million for Northumbrian Water to prevent 365,000 properties in
Essex being cut off for a potentially extended period.
Protect £40 million investment in strategic water interconnection by Anglian Water, rejecting Ofwat’s decision that would have reduced the capacity of the interconnection pipes.
Restore £ 5 million for Anglian to increase its sludge capacity to minimise the operational resilience risk around their ability to deal with increased volumes.
OFWAT has clearly shown not to be fit for purpose. It should be abolished in favour of a publicly accountable single water regulator alongside a complete reform of the management and rebuilding of the UK’s water resources to deliver clean and plentiful water and wastewater infrastructure fit to meet the challenges of climate change and a growing population, without further damaging the environment.
4) Accept that underfunding leads to failure and underperformance
OFWAT’s rejection of necessary investment has directly caused problems. For example:
The whole industry was denied sufficient funding for leakage improvements over more than a decade.
They refused almost all of five English and Welsh companies’ climate resilience proposals to fund wastewater capacity upgrades, cutting the budget from £403 million to £16.4 million. This stopped £387 million of investment that would have allowed a half-decade head start on the storm overflows programme while also reducing sewer flooding.
Given the scale of both the environmental and economic challenge posed by a failing water sector with a crumbling infrastructure, the next government has little choice but to introduce primary legislation to abolish the two regulator model and overhaul the entire regulatory oversight of the industry to put environmental needs front and centre in a complete sector reset.
5) End the casino economy in the water industry
When water was privatised in 1989, the new companies were able to acquire public assets that were completely debt free. Thirty-five years later, companies like Thames Water are now a staggering £15 billion in debt and teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. A succession of private owners levered this debt mountain to strip out more than £7 billion in dividends to shareholders whilst paying eye-watering bonuses to top executives as a perverse reward for presiding over operational failure and turning a blind eye to financial sharp practice. Vampire owners like Macquarie should never have been allowed to mortgage their company’s balance sheets to fund excessive dividends. OFWAT could and should have prevented it.
Every piece of this scandal took place right under the nose of OFWAT, whose senior directors see no contradiction in taking highly paid jobs in the same companies they are supposed to be regulating only the month before.
The next government needs a new Water Industry Act to either create entirely new community interest entities to operate the water infrastructure or, at the very least, to correct the gaping loopholes in the current legislation that allow public assets and vital public resource to be traded like Bitcoin irrespective of the looming threats to both the economy and the environment.
6) Give the Environment Agency the power and the resources to do its job
The EA has been systematically hollowed out by a 57% cutback in its resources since 2010 turning from the bulldog it should be into the ineffective lapdog it’s now become. Enforcement rarely occurs and when it does it can take years to bring polluters to court. Only a minority of reported fish kills will even trigger a visit from Agency staff who are now simply spread too thin to be effective.
The organisation has suffered from poor leadership and is massively risk averse at a time when environmental stakeholders and the public at large are looking to it to take tough action in defence of our rivers and waterways. The Environment Agency is now under new leadership. The next government must give them the resources to do the job, and make it clear it must hold polluters to account, and ensure the protecting the environment is its first, last, and only priority.
Only a minority of reported fish kills trigger a visit from Environment Agency staff
7) Treat water as national infrastructure priority
Part of any new deal for water must involve getting serious about planning and building control. It must treat water as a national infrastructure priority. It’s crazy that planning for capital projects is squeezed into a five-year time frame. Something the nuclear industry, for example, would consider laughable. Reservoirs take years to plan, years to build and a long time to fill. We need long term investment planning if we are to be in anyway serious about resolving the challenges posed by declining water quality, climate change and population growth.
Here are some much needed reforms the new Environment Secretary should bring in immediately:
The National Infrastructure Commission should be instructed to set out the funding needed to:
Adapt to climate change
Restore infrastructure to a decent standard (e.g. by setting a target to
Match European average replacement rates by 2030)
Eliminate ecological harm
Eliminate all serious pollution incidents.
OFWAT (or its successor) should be required to deliver consent to match that level of funding or explain to Parliament why it hasn’t.
The new government should replace the clunky and little heeded Strategic Policy Statement for Water – currently the only way ministers can seek to influence the ‘independent’ regulator – with an Outcomes Direction to force them to take decisions in line with the priorities above.
While a new Water Act is necessary in the next Parliament these immediate measures would not require legislation. The current Water Industry Act just says that government should provide high-level guidance to the regulator. The problem is that it doesn’t.
8) New legislation to reduce abstraction and improve water security
With 85% of the world’s chalkstreams located in England, our stewardship of these precious assets is little short of shameful. These globally recognised, iconic ecosystems should be exemplars of a pristine aquatic environment. Instead, some are now used as open sewers and others are sucked dry through over abstraction. The Hertfordshire chalkstreams such as the Rib, Beane, and Ver have been reduced to a shadow of their former selves and now are often completely dewatered in stretches that were once home to a thriving population of brown trout and coarse fish. Water companies like Affinity find it easier and cheaper to suck the chalk aquifers dry rather than invest in the storage of winter rainfall.
A basic tenet of any water policy must be to collect surplus in times of plenty to guard against economic and environmental damage in times of scarcity. A new Water Act must enshrine this principle into law.
It should also do the following:
Streamline the planning process for water resources projects so that small projects, including nature-based solutions, that interlink are approved as one project.
Amend Development Consent Order legislation so that non-potable water schemes are eligible. This is crucial for speeding up delivery of water transfers in and between regions.
Set a clear target for drought resilience standards as legal minimums (currently they are advisory).
Reform building regulations to ensure proper water efficient homes (including appliance labelling and minimum efficiency standards).
End the developers automatic right to connect into the local sewerage system if it lacks sufficient capacity to treat the effluent to standard. Force developers to pay for local upgrades required by their proposals.
A reduction in abstraction is vital to stop rivers running dry.
9) Re-use wastewater
The UK is well behind other countries in using wastewater sensibly. For example, in Spain it’s a requirement to use treated wastewater on golf courses rather than abstracting fresh drinking water from the public supply.
We need to quickly follow what is already happening in Europe by using treated wastewater for agricultural irrigation and businesses. This would reduce demand and abstraction and could make a significant difference to river health thereby improving the environment for invertebrates and fish.
10) Overhaul the Environmental Permitting Regime
If having a combined rainwater and foul water sewerage system complete with storm overflows delivers ‘pollution by design’ the anomalies in the current permitting system create ‘pollution by permission’. The whole system needs a complete overhaul focusing on the health of the rivers and seas rather than treating them as dumping grounds of last resort when the system fails or trigger points are reached.
A particularly absurd anomaly sees water companies measured on what they keep in the pipe not what spills out of it. And the counting of storm overflow spills makes little sense as currently a five-minute spill is counted the same as one that lasts 12 hours. We need to move to assessed volumetric measures. It’s the volume of shit that needs counting, not the length of time a pipe might be dribbling. It is also ridiculous that pipes at the same sewage treatment site are individually permitted rather than permitting all the combined output with an incentive to maximise the treated flow.
11) Worry more about major system failure
The headline figures on sewage pollution are primarily around storm overflows, but just wait until the rising mains start crumbling as is already happening in the Thames Water region. That’s when we get total wipe out – when a problem becomes an environmental catastrophe. By 2050, in many of our water companies a majority of their rising mains will be over 100 years old and well past their sell by dates. In a few cases we are still relying on the brilliance of Victorian engineers to keep untreated sewage out of the rivers. This is clearly not sustainable.
Of course, storm discharges are unacceptable, they are horrible and stink, but do a lot less damage than a fractured rising main sewer. Investment priorities need to be focused on reducing the most harm and this should include getting ammonia and phosphorus levels down in small streams in dry weather where the harm caused to fish and invertebrates is acute.
12) Embrace citizen science and involve stakeholders in the management of rivers
Anglers and local river groups invest millions of hours of volunteer time every year into the maintenance and improvement of water environments by clearing litter, restoring habitats and monitoring and fighting pollution. They see what is happening and are often ‘the canaries in the coal mine’. Currently the EA does nothing about discharges from septic tanks or from the growing army of live-aboard boaters. Local intelligence can help plug these gaps.
In 2022, in response to record levels of sewage discharges and the continued failure of the Environment Agency to properly monitor the threats to our rivers, the Angling Trust established a national Water Quality Monitoring Network of citizen volunteers to collect and analyse water samples in their areas. It has now engaged over 784 anglers from 278 clubs operating on 202 rivers across 68 catchments collecting around 5,600 individual samples. The results are alarming with 44% of samples exceeding recommended phosphate and nitrate levels, 200 incidents of algae blooms and 300 pollution incidents observed.
Citizen science clearly has a big role to play as we need much better data to make proper decisions but currently the EA won’t accept their results. This is absurd and we need the government to intervene and ensure a role for citizen volunteers alongside an accreditation scheme with independent verification.
Our Water Quality Monitoring Network shows citizen science has a big role to play in river management
Summary
The privatisation of our water industry has been a disaster and I doubt if any of the politicians likely to be in the hot seats in DEFRA have any real comprehension of the extent and scale of the problems they are about to inherit. But let’s not get too starry eyed about the record of the sector in public ownership for there really was no ‘golden era’ when the rivers flowed bright and clear and the taps kept running. In the 1950’s the tidal Thames in London was declared ‘biologically dead’ and further upstream around Staines, where I grew up, there were signs advising us not to bathe in its polluted waters.
There are now many rivers and streams that have been brought back from the brink primarily thanks to European legislation like the Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, as well as tougher domestic controls. But rules and regulation require properly funded and empowered regulators with a clear sense of purpose that put the environment first. They also require an industry that is accountable and an infrastructure that it fit for purpose rather than the ‘creaking and leaking’ timebomb that is about to land on the desk of the new Secretary of State for the Environment.
By all means, play around with different ownership models that deliver proper accountability for this most vital of our public assets. But please, please don’t forget to fix the pipes.
The water pollution crisis in our rivers, lakes and seas is one of the leading issues for the 2024 general election. River Action, joined by communities and organisations nationwide, has raised the alarm and called on voters to join the campaign. But are suggestions like The Charter for Rivers reflected in the manifestos?
Freshwater is the lifeblood of our land, enabling food and water security, underpinning our economy, literally sustaining lives. But our rivers and lakes are dying – only 14% of rivers in England are in good ecological condition and 83% of rivers are highly polluted by sewage and agriculture.
Earlier this year, water quality testing from River Action revealed high levels of dangerous E.coli bacteria in the River Thames ahead of the famous Boat Race. With 3.6 million hours of raw sewage spilled in 2023 and water companies accruing £64 billion in debt since privatisation while rewarding shareholders with £78 billion of dividends, this is no surprise. Known by many of our neighbours as ‘The Dirty Man of Europe’, the UK has some of the worst water quality.
Now that we are clear on the scale of the crisis, let’s look at how our rivers, lakes and seas could be protected and restored in the next government.
Labour
Starting with (according to the polls) the frontrunner candidate for the next government. The manifesto essentially wrote itself from various recent Labour announcements. Having first trumpeted it would ban bonuses for polluting water company bosses’ in October 2023, they have made it a top feature in the manifesto. Likewise bringing criminal charges against persistent lawbreakers. This is a welcome policy but not the urgent systemic root and branch regulatory reform needed.
How, we wonder, will they accelerate the penalty and prosecution process, having committed to automatic and severe fines? It took 6 and 4 years respectively for Thames Water and Southern Water to be prosecuted for major fish kills by the poorly performing Environment Agency. It needs a new bold government to give the enforcers back their sharp teeth. Labour’s commitment to independent pollution monitoring is well received. We can’t have polluters marking their own homework. But, with the Environment Agency notoriously turning-up late and downgrading serious pollution incidents, we need the threat of immediate inspections reinstated to rattle illegal polluters.
In March this year, Labour vowed to put water companies into special measures to force them to clean up their toxic mess and protect people’s health. This made the manifesto, but the party has been light on detail of what these special measures would be. For example, what is their commitment to ensuring the taxpayer does not bail out a failing water company like Thames Water?
Labour has remained quiet on agricultural pollution, likely due to its targeting of rural votes and pacifying the National Farmers’ Union. The manifesto recognises that the Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMS) must work for farmers and nature. But unlike the other manifestos it does not put a number on what support would look like. A missed opportunity to support struggling farmers.
Surprisingly, there is nothing on water scarcity – how can a party claim to prioritise growth when our freshwater, therefore economy, is at risk of drying up?
Conservative
With the backdrop of an attack on net zero costs and threat of new oil and gas licensing rounds, the Conservative’s environmental manifesto pledges are a roundup of the policies introduced while in government. Why does it take an election to announce reviewing Ofwat’s dreadful Price Review process? They lack ambition compared with 2019 and what is needed to remedy more than a decade of environmental degradation.
Their manifesto is marred by almost daily news about the failing water industry while under their tenure – most recently, analysis from the BBC found every major English water company has reported data showing they have discharged raw sewage when the weather is dry. We are concerned to see the returned threat of scrapping the nutrient neutrality rules which protect vulnerable waterways. If last autumn’s Commons v Lords debacle is anything to go by, can we expect the Conservatives to continue to set up housing against clean rivers? We can and must have both. And the proposal to use polluter fines to fund nature based solutions will only work if sufficiently punitive and hefty. At the moment it pays to pollute.
We were pleased to see the River Wye get a mention in the manifesto. However, it was in reference to the ‘Plan for the River Wye’ which local campaigners have ridiculed for falling ‘far short’, countering with their own action plan to revive the river. The manifesto does at least recognise the need for an increased farming budget, with a commitment to increase it by £1 billion over the Parliament; mimicking but not matching a policy first mentioned at the Liberal Democrat conference last autumn.
As the Conservatives fight to hold their rural seats, expectations were almost non-existent about the potential for a shake up on their water policy. With the announcement of banning wet wipes made three times over as many years, we have become accustomed to repeated broken/recycled promises. Perhaps a new version of the Conservative party, reverting to its small ‘c’ conservative roots might emerge post election, incorporating more of the Conservative Environment Network’s manifesto for rivers, seas and waterways; such as linking water company CEOs pay with environmental performance and ensuring housebuilding doesn’t contribute to storm overflow discharges?
Liberal Democrats
After Ed Davey fell off a paddleboard in Lake Windermere to highlight the sewage crisis, it was no surprise that our polluted waters feature as the top Lib Dem environmental message. While they have long trailed their sewage policies, the manifesto included a few interesting new ideas. Policies include ‘blue flag standards’ and ‘blue corridors’ to drive clean and healthy waterways and giving local environmental groups a place on water companies’ boards. Restructuring water companies into public benefit companies could help put people and planet before profit, giving a voice to communities and ensuring financial rewards relate to environmental performance. Their proposed abolition of Ofwat may be a good step too… will a tough new regulator rise from the swamp?
A Sewage Tax on water company profits may resonate with voters, a direct way of linking environmental and financial performance. An explicit reference to enforcing laws on sewage overflows is welcome, but should extend to other water pollution including agriculture. The current damp squib advisory approach to law enforcement has led to the ecological collapse of rivers like the Wye. As with the other manifestos reviewed, there is limited explicit reference to the essential ingredients to regulatory reform such as an increase in Environment Agency inspections and publishing independent pollution monitoring data. The public has a right to know what goes into their inland and coastal waters – and who is to blame – and all parties should commit to transparency (which would also save the regulators time and money on information requests and legal prosecutions).
The Lib Dem manifesto does make the direct link between farming and rivers, with a commitment to “support farmers to reduce the pollution of rivers, streams and lakes” and plans to properly fund the Environmental Land Management scheme with an extra £1 billion a year. The creation of an Environmental Rights Act – guaranteeing everyone’s right to a healthy environment could help them achieve the target of doubling nature by 2050.
It seems that beyond the confines of electoral targets, the Lib Dems have an opportunity to position themselves as the party for water and broaden focus out from just sewage pollution. This was demonstrated with voter approval in the rural Tiverton by-election last year and may be repeated in the general election. But as with the others, there was silence on water shortages, although a single social tariff for water bills to eliminate water poverty was a nod in the right direction.
Green
Finally, to the Greens, who recognised in their manifesto launch that they have no expectations of forming a government but instead will play a key role in holding the party in power accountable. Their manifesto states what they will push for in parliament rather than what they would implement as Government.
Backed by a promise to tax the super rich, the Green Party manifesto has the environment as one of its three key pillars, and directly recognises the food system as the “greatest driver of nature loss and pollution.” They would triple support for farmers to transition to nature friendly farming, and link payments to reduced use of pesticides and agrichemicals. And, they would end factory farming, which by default would significantly reduce agricultural nutrient pollution.
Greens would take water companies back into public ownership. Will that extend to reforming the environmental regulators and toughening enforcement? Under the current system, fines from water companies that are put back into protecting the environment equate to approximately 1% of funds distributed to shareholders. Such a derisory penalty, acts as a reward rather than deterrent for breaking the law.
The Greens propose tackling the water crisis through other means too. Setting aside 30% of land by 2030 to allow natural recovery of waterways, and assert a Right to Roam to increase access and people’s likelihood of caring about the environment that sustains them.
The potentially one or two new Green MPs will follow in the footsteps of Caroline Lucas, one of the few MPs to cast a wide net on raising river pollution issues, and after reading the manifesto we expect to see the new generation of Greens to do the same.
Reform
There is not much to say here. Reform’s manifesto commits to cancelling all EU inherited regulations (i.e. all our current environmental standards and protections) and abandoning any commitment to achieving net zero. The Reform Party will scrap climate-related farming subsidies and stop Natural England protecting wildlife. There is no reference to rivers or ending pollution.
In conclusion
It is very encouraging that four manifestos have cited water pollution but there’s little to get excited about. Whichever party forms the the next government has a long way to go to inspire belief that significant action will be taken to save our rivers, lakes and seas over the next parliament, as key measures were limited or missing from the manifestos including:
Sewage – significant reform of Ofwat’s failed regulation of the water industry to end decades of profiteering and pollution, and restructuring and refinancing failing water companies linking environmental and shareholder performance, putting people and planet before profits.
Agriculture – strengthening regulation on intensive livestock farming and enforcing the law, limiting density of factory farms in catchments, supporting farmers with environmental incentives, enabling nutrient trading – turning farm waste into resource – and increasing farmers’ share of food pricing.
Water scarcity – restoring wetlands, building more reservoirs and fixing leaking water pipes so we do not run out of water; delivered through a nationwide plan to secure water within and between catchments, while decreasing demand for abstraction, protecting our most vulnerable waterways like chalk streams.
Monitoring and enforcement – properly funding environmental protection agencies and water industry regulators, publishing independent pollution monitoring and sharing data with the public and between regulators, equipping and instructing them to take firm action against polluters.
Protecting public health – ensuring the Environment Agency properly monitors our rivers and publishes transparent data and guidance about when it is safe to use rivers, and making water companies introduce tertiary treatment of final effluent in areas of high use and risk.
It’s not our job to tell anyone how to vote on July 4th, but as we head to the polls what we can do is constantly urge all politicians to put water – rivers, lakes and seas – at the heart of the next parliament.
We must value water as if it’s the elixir of life and enabler of every aspect of our economy. We must start acting like we are in a freshwater emergency. That means a government that prioritises this urgent mission. One that will provide the financial and policy commitments, but also the leadership to rebuild trust and mobilise regulators, civil servants, politicians and industry into action. We need to welcome in a new era of collaborative working – across parties, sectors and communities – moving beyond blame and deceit to achieve rapid transformational systemic solutions. To do this, the new government must define and own the problem, be transparent and fulfil its promises now, not in future decades, and that starts with committing to wholesale regulatory reform backed by sufficient funding.
For real change, we need the new Secretary of State for the Environment to sit opposite the Prime Minister at Cabinet, next to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and for the environment to be front and centre in our nation’s political future.
#VoteCleanRivers
James is Chief Executive of River Action. He is a naturalist, archaeologist and social entrepreneur and has established enterprises ranging from renewable energy, regenerative agriculture and green finance to ecotourism, nature restoration and deep sea exploration. Prior to helping Charles Watson develop River Action into a national charity, James was CEO and Co-founder of Beaver Trust where he led the coalition to protect and live alongside native beavers.
James campaigns to rescue Britain’s rivers using systemic, local solutions, working collaboratively in the freshwater emergency. He convenes national stakeholders, bringing together government, industry, NGO and community leaders to secure abundant, clean water and restore wildlife habitats, while holding polluters and regulators to account in the courts of public opinion and law.
By Charles Watson, chairman and founder of River Action.
Having spent a 25 year career in the crisis management end of the public relations industry, I recall counselling clients repeatedly that litigation was never something to take on lightly and the risks, almost without exception, will always outweigh the rewards.
And then, on 4 February this year, I found myself sitting as a litigant in Cardiff Crown Court, as our King’s Counsel rose to his feet to open River Action’s judicial hearing case against the Environment Agency and the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra).
A clue to why I had ignored my own better judgment lay in a beautiful glass vial of water that was sitting beside me in the court room. It had been drawn the previous day from the River Wye and was presented to me as I entered the courthouse by members of some of the Wye community groups who had (very noisily) joined us that day outside the courthouse to demonstrate their solidarity.
Once well protected, the river is now almost dead
Often cited as one of our most loved rivers, the Wye rises high up in the Welsh mountain hinterland before flowing majestically through the English-Welsh borderlands to its mouth in the Severn Estuary. Our fourth longest river’s unique beauty and biodiversity has been recognised over the years by the award of some of the highest possible levels of environmental protection, such as its Special Area of Conservation status and the designation of swathes of its valley as Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty.
But, devastatingly, within the space of less than a decade this magnificent river has become the UK’s Ground Zero of river pollution. One major cause has been the uncontrolled growth of the UK’s largest concentration of intensive poultry production, which has resulted in unsustainable quantities of toxic animal waste leaching into the river, causing untold ecological damage. Ninety five per cent of the Wye’s famous water crowfoot river weed has disappeared, snuffed out by putrid green algal blooms. Last summer, Natural England downgraded the river’s status to a level just one notch up from being pronounced dead.
It was for the Wye that we had gone to court.
To me, our legal case was incredibly simple. The environmental regulations that were there to protect the river had simply never been enforced by the very statutory bodies that were tasked to do so.
Failure to enforce farming rules has been catastrophic
The core of these regulations originated in 2018, when our then Environment Minister Michael Gove introduced the Farming Rules for Water. However, immediately on introduction, their non-enforcement farce began. Highly effective lobbying from the NFU ensured farmers were initially exempt from the new regulations, however Michael Gove’s predecessor at Defra Liz Truss, had already slammed the nails into the coffin of effective agricultural regulation by virtually closing down farm inspections, thus eliminating all means of future enforcement, with agricultural regulation shifting to an almost exclusively ‘advisory’ basis.
The net effect of this approach on rivers like the Wye has been nothing short of catastrophic. Every six weeks, when the sheds containing the catchment’s 25 million chickens are ‘harvested’, huge quantities of highly potent manure are shovelled out and spread (for convenient disposal) across the fields of the catchment. As a result, the soils of the Wye Valley have progressively become saturated with totally unsustainable levels of phosphorus. And the rest is history.
In our view, had the Farming Rules for Water been properly enforced, none of this could have happened. Indeed, the most important of these regulations (Rule 1 a) states clearly that: “Application of organic manures… to cultivated land must be planned in advance to meet soil and crop nutrient needs and not exceed these levels”.
However, guidance issued by Defra to the Environment Agency (thanks to another NFU lobbying coup) specifically exempts farmers from having to follow this critical rule, thus creating another gaping loophole in the protections the Wye so desperately needed.
Major victories were won in court
It was to challenge this terrible state of affairs that River Action went to court, with the case being heard in February in Cardiff. Here, our brilliant legal team squared up against the combined legal teams of the Environment Agency, Defra and the NFU (the latter having gatecrashed the proceedings at the last minute as an ‘intervener’).
Although, when judgment was passed down four months later and the judge ruled against us, it was apparent that River Action had won some major victories.
First, the judgment fully acknowledged that, due to the Wye’s severe levels of pollution, farming practices must change. Second, the legal status of the infamous guidance issued by Defra to the Environment Agency, was called into question, with the judgment that spreading manure in the autumn and winter should be limited, when the danger of polluting the river is at its highest, with the NFU’s intervention being unequivocally dismissed.
Finally, the judge made it clear that the overall basis of his dismissal of our claim was because changes to key enforcement policies made by the Environment Agency, during the course of River Action’s proceedings, subsequently brought it into compliance with the law, and that these changes were only made by the agency as a result of our claim.
Notwithstanding the above, we have immediately moved to appeal the judgment and continue the fight for the river. Given that the Environment Agency’s new enforcement policies apparently now bring it into line with the law, River Action will make it our business to audit the new approach, with Freedom of Information requests being dispatched on a rolling three monthly basis to enable us to monitor inspection and enforcement activities. Let’s see if the agency really has turned over a new leaf.
The new government should repeal the flawed guidance
Finally, following the judge’s questioning of the legal basis of Defra’s guidance to the Environment Agency, after the general election, the new Defra secretary of state will find, at the top of his or her in tray, our demands that this now discredited guidance is immediately repealed, or back to court we will go.
The turbid, slime-filled condition of the River Wye can only remind us how far we still have to go before the river stands a chance of being restored to its former glory. But, perhaps, by defying the odds (and all better judgment), we hope our travails through the courts might just have made a little bit of a difference in starting to reverse the repeated injustices that have been allowed to be inflicted upon this once magnificent river.
By Rebecca Hardy, Aged 20, 3rd year Student at the University of East Anglia
As a third-year International Relations student at the University of East Anglia, I never imagined my academic journey would lead me to the heart of a grassroots environmental campaign.
It all started in my Activist Campaigning class. We had a guest speaker from River Action who painted a vivid picture of the challenges facing our local waterways. Pollution, habitat destruction, and neglect have heavily affected the rivers that once thrived in this region. Inspired and eager to make a difference, I joined a newly formed student group dedicated to campaigning for the health of our rivers.
Our first meeting was a mix of excitement and uncertainty. None of us had any real experience in activism, but we shared a common goal: to learn how to campaign effectively and bring about tangible change. We began by educating ourselves, diving into research about the local ecosystems, the impact of pollution, and successful environmental campaigns around the world. We attended workshops on advocacy and social media strategies, hosted by experienced activists and professors.
Armed with knowledge and a growing sense of purpose, we launched our campaign. We started by organising a week’s worth of campaigning such as creating and handing out flyers and showing off our fantastic placards (shoutout to the design team!) .
As our confidence grew, so did our ambitions. We created a petition demanding stronger environmental protections for the rivers. Our weekends were spent canvassing in busy areas, talking to locals about the importance of clean rivers. Engaging with the community was both challenging and rewarding. We encountered scepticism but also found allies who were passionate about our cause. As a result we garnered over 250 signatures for our petition which was a great result considering our campaign being short.
Social media has become a powerful tool in our arsenal such as creating Instagram, Facebook and Twitter accounts which got some attention. One of my most memorable moments was participating in an international conference in America where other
Campaigning students shared what they were working on. This provided a great learning experience and reflecting on what we have already achieved but also improve on next time.
Our efforts culminated in a hustings event with Green party member Gary Champion and River Action’s Chloe Peck. The hustings was overall a success with many willing participants and loads of questions which could have lasted more than an hour!. To our delight, the council acknowledged our concerns and promised to take steps towards better river management and pollution control.
Reflecting on this journey, I am struck by how much I have learned and grown. Campaigning for Norwich’s rivers has taught me the power of community, the importance of persistence, and the impact that a dedicated group of individuals can have. It has been a transformative experience, turning a group of university students into passionate advocates for environmental change. The rivers of Norwich are more than just waterways; they are lifelines that connect us all, and I am proud to be part of the movement to protect and revive them.
As I walked towards the huddle of rowing enthusiasts crowding before the Linacre Rowing Club facilities, I felt a sense of confidence and trepidation fill me at the sight. On Saturday 20th April, the Linacre women’s 8 rowing boat was named ‘River Action’, to honour the campaign group’s work drawing global attention to the horrific levels of pollution on the River Thames.
As a young person at the event, I felt privileged to be surrounded by such admirable people whose lives revolve around caring for others, the planet and in many cases their sport. I wandered around with my sister chatting by my side and witnessed partnerships turn to friendships and strangers turn to colleagues.
With the river running murky beside us, we feel our sadness at the state of the River Thames washed away by uplifting speeches from James Wallace, CEO of River Action and Frederick Mulder. They remind us what we are all striving for and the desperate needs of our rivers today.
I feel sickened, as do many rowers affected by E. Coli poisoning in the past year, at the poor state of Britain’s rivers and feel the health and happiness of my own future inexplicably linked to the wellbeing of every waterway around me. The toll of millions of hours of sewage discharge in the past year is painted clearly through the clumps of algal bloom and streams clouded brown, snaking their way through cities and rural countryside.
Lethal levels of the E.coli pathogen from sewage released from under regulated water companies, like Thames Water, are poisoning our waterways. As a young person, who should look up to the government with pride and confidence, I feel constantly overwhelmed by the disappointing levels of protection being taken to save the water that each and everyone of us relies on.
We all need water to survive and as I see futures of deprivation flash before my eyes, I think back to my childhood, filled with wild swimming in my local Kennet river. Weeping willows dancing beside the clear water rushing beside me and a feeling of elation at the beauty surrounding me.
As our world slips into an ecological crisis, I feel implored to fight for my future and just as every rower will agree with me, water is a vital part of it. So let’s protect it and value it and remember the summers we spent playing in it. Because those summers are over now and the safety we were once guaranteed is now fading into the past.
At River Action, we want to highlight the amazing work of communities up and down the country. Here we take a look at River Cree Hatchery & Habitat Trust SCIO (RCHHT) a community-led conservation project initiated by local people who have a passion to improve the health of their river.
THE STORY
In March 2010, members of Newton Stewart Angling Association commenced the hatchery and habitat project in response to the decline in the numbers of Atlantic salmon in The River Cree and its tributaries.
By October 2010 the hatchery facility was operational and in the first season some 65000 salmon fry were raised in the hatchery and returned to the river.
In 2011 a charitable trust, The River Cree Hatchery and Habitat Trust, was formed to take over the running of the project and shortly thereafter a full-time Hatchery Coordinator was employed to oversee the running of the operation. Over the next few years the project steadily increased the scope of its activities, including:
Up to 190,000 salmon fry were reared in the hatchery each year and stocked into the Cree catchment.
Electro-fishing skills were honed in order to assist with broodstock capture and to monitor fish numbers, including stocked fry
A programme of extensive habitat improvements was commenced, including removing barriers to migration, controlling Invasive Non Native Species, cutting back self-seeded Sitka on the banks of spawning burns and re-planting with native broadleaf trees.
An education programme, initially involving four local primary schools, was developed.
A training programme was developed to enable employment and training opportunities to be offered to local unemployed youngsters.
Volunteering opportunities were offered for up to forty local people each year. Fish husbandry techniques were developed to improve the quality of the salmon fry being reared. Stocking of a limited number of fin-clipped fry was commenced to assist in identifying hatchery-reared adult salmon
In February 2023 the operation was transferred to River Cree Hatchery & Habitat Trust SCIO, which continues to deliver and develop all the above activities.
To deliver this extensive programme of activities it is important that the Trust trains a team of volunteers with the necessary skills to run the hatchery and con-duct the habitat restoration work. The Trustees would very much appreciate any assistance you feel you could offer to promote the further development of River Cree Hatchery & Habitat Trust SCIO. For further information on future developments please contact: Murdo Crosbie (Co-ordinator) Tel: 01671 403722/ 07798653740; email to: mcrosbie7@aol.com.
Set to take place at Morden Hall on the River Wandle, London, SM4 5JD, on the 21st May 2024, The UK River Summit Festival is an event which promises to be a platform for collaboration and communication to improve our river health.
The event will bring together leading environmentalists, businesses, individuals, brands, and members of the public who share a desire to work towards a more positive future for our rivers, both on a local and national scale.
It offers the public insight into the expert voices behind the headlines and the chance for campaigners, advocates, and conservationists to unify. Importantly, it promises to be a momentous movement, capturing the essence of community, culture, and environmental consciousness against the backdrop of our beloved rivers.
Speakers include the likes of: Lawrence Gosden (CEO of Southern Water), Lila Thompson (CEO of British Water), Feargal Sharkey (Campaigner and Vice Chair of River Action), Penny Gane (Head of Practice at Fish legal), James Wallace (CEO of River Action), Shaun Leonard (Director at Wild Trout Trust), Bella Davies (CEO of South East Rivers Trust), Jim Murray (Actor and Founder of Activist Anglers) and many, many more.
There will be a wild food lunch with DeliVita, cold Beers from Lakedown Brewing Company and soft drinks available, all included in the ticket price.
The afternoon will feature further panels and workshops throughout the day, from a range of local organisations and NGOs including: The Wandle Piscators, South East Rivers Trust, Orvis UK, WildFish, Abel & Cole, National Trust, Wandle Industrial Museum and many more, as well as comedy, music and film screenings. (Find out more).
We are delighted to welcome Baroness Jenny Jones to River Action’s Advisory Board! In our latest blog, we find out more about Jenny’s life, professional experience, and what drives her to help rescue Britain’s rivers.
Q1. Tell us about yourself
I’m a Green. That influences the way I live and my work, both inside and outside the House of Lords, whether doing media or pottering on my allotment. I also believe in fairness, which is hard to achieve, but necessary for a society that works for all.
I grew up on a working class council estate on the edge of Brighton. Later I became an archaeologist as a mature student and worked for ten years in various countries, mostly in the Middle East.
And then, I became a politician. I won three elections to the London Assembly, I was Deputy Mayor of London 2003, and I’ve also been a local councillor, so I know the importance of representing people and getting things done.
Q2. What first sparked your interest in river protection?
My experience abroad made me very aware that clean water, along with clean air, are basics for human health and Nature. The London Assembly did lots of work trying to get Thames Water to deal with things like leaking pipes and investing in the future, but my personal focus was on cleaning up London’s air. I worked with professors who described how they didn’t trust DEFRA with anything they did on either pollution in water or air. In the 1980s, they ended up taking their own samples of coastal sea water to provide to the European Commission that our water quality was poor. I found it shocking that our environmental enforcement agencies are so complicit in the poor state of water and air, but all my experiences as a politician reinforced that view.
In the House of Lords, it became an issue that I would invest a lot of time and energy addressing when the Environment Bill began to make its way through Parliament. Others raised the issue of the pollution of specific rivers, chalk streams and parts of our coastline, and it resonated with my Green principles but also with my concern for human and Nature’s wellbeing.
Once I was involved, in spite of sewage and agricultural run off being such awful issues, I found a wonderful cross section of society joining together to battle with water companies, farms and the Govt. Good people. And often great fun to campaign with.
Q3. You have had many prominent roles in politics, including Deputy Mayor of London, Deputy Chair of the London Assembly’s Police and Crime Committee, Green Councillor for Southwark Council and Chair of the Green Party of England and Wales. Over the years, what are the biggest changes that you have seen in UK politics over the issue of water quality and what do politicians need to prioritise to clean up our rivers?
The rise of public understanding of the pollution of our waterways in a very short time has been phenomenal. It’s now something that people talk about on the tube! Obviously celebrities really help to get the message across and very visible eg Feargal, Chris Packham. They make it understandable, the problems and the possible solutions.
On cleaning up our rivers, there has to be more Govt support for local groups to access good advice on their specific pollution. There has to be help to farmers, to limit their polluting run off and change practices. But most of all, we must invest in our sewage and water systems. We must fund the regulators properly, give them real power to force changes, and instead of fines, which the companies happily pay, we take shares in the companies. When they fail, as they inevitably will, we can take the bankrupt water companies back into public ownership.
Q4. You were appointed to the House of Lords in November 2013. Tell us more about your role and the changes that you would like to see happen in politics to improve water quality?
Explaining my role would take ages!
The Green Party has few platforms, so when I speak in the HoL, I try to speak in clear language so that people outside the Westminster bubble can make sense of our arcane practices. Of course I use the HoL to make a fuss about legislation and its environmental impacts, but also to get Green messages across to the public, who might otherwise not hear our wonderful policies and ideas. People used to ask me why I was speaking in a debate on, say, policing or health, and I had to explain that there is always a green angle, to every topic, that needs to be considered. It might be human rights, or how and where our food is grown, or democratic issues about our unfair voting system. There’s always a green angle …
Q5. And finally, In your opinion, what needs to change to rescue Britain’s rivers?
We have to be tough on all polluters and make them pay for the clean up, not taxpayers. But crucially, not allow pollution in the first place.
Rowers at a University of Oxford college have named a boat in honour of River Action, whose mission is to save the UK’s rivers from pollution.
The women’s eights first team rowers at Linacre College named their boat ‘River Action’ to honour the campaign group’s work drawing global attention to water pollution on the River Thames believed to be caused by Thames Water.
In the run up to the historic Gemini Boat Race between the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge, water quality experts from River Action, in partnership with Fulham Reach Boat Club, conducted E.coli tests on the stretch of the Thames used for the race.
Using a World Health Organization verified E.Coli analyser, the tests revealed levels of E.coli up to 10 times higher than what the Environment Agency considers acceptable for designated bathing waters graded poor, the bottom of four categories. When bathing water is graded ‘poor’ the Government’s advice is against bathing. The testing locations suggest that the source of pollution was from Thames Water discharging sewage directly into the River Thames and its tributaries.
Principal of Linacre College, Dr Nick Leimu-Brown said, “The River Thames is part of the identity and daily life of our university, and we are horrified that its polluted waters are now such a risk to wildlife and public health.”
Linacre Boat Club President, Sydney Rose said, “Linacre Boat Club is proud to support the vision of River Action UK to preserve the health of this cherished historic waterway and the people who gather around it.”
CEO of River Action James Wallace said, “It is humbling that the women’s first team eights at Linacre College have honoured River Acton, naming their boat after us. It is a privilege to lead a team of committed campaigners drawing attention to the pollution crisis on our rivers caused, in part, by the water companies allowing tens of thousands of hours of sewage to enter our rivers every year. The damage this does to human health, to river health is incalculable.
“Rowers spend so much of their time on rivers, and they know better than most, because many of them are getting sick, the awful state of our waterways. Too many of the UK’s rivers are contaminated with sewage because the water companies have, since privatisation 30 years ago, failed to upgrade their infrastructure, favouring instead to reward shareholders with multi-billion-pound dividends.
“We have had enough of this corporate greed and putting polluters’ interests before the interests of the environment. Together with the rowing community, including all the rowers at Linacre College, we are standing up for river health, placing the polluters on notice that we will hold you accountable. We have the same message for the government which fails to enforce environmental laws that are there to protect rivers.”
For interviews call Ian Woolverton on 07377 547 362 or email media@riveractionuk.com
Notes to editor In response to the UK’s river pollution crisis and recognising that rowers spend a huge amount of their daily lives either on or by the water, British Rowing, River Action, and The Rivers Trust developed a set of guidelines for rowing on poor quality water.
‘Guidance on rowing when water quality is poor’ has been written to minimise the risk of contracting illness due to proximity to polluted water. Included are helpful tips on the importance of covering cuts, grazes, and blisters with waterproof dressings, taking care not to swallow river water that splashes close to the mouth, wearing suitable footwear when launching or recovering a boat, and cleaning all equipment thoroughly. The new guidance has been issued to rowing clubs across the country.
River Action is on a mission to rescue Britain’s rivers by raising awareness of pollution and water shortages and applying pressure on industrial and agricultural producers, water companies, and others. The group brings awareness to the crisis facing our rivers, and the failure of Government funded environmental agencies to address this. To learn more about River Action: www.riveractionuk.com.
![“As our world slips into an ecological crisis, I feel implored to fight for my future [. . .] and water is a vital part of it”: Young voices call for change.](https://riveractionuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Untitled-design-2024-05-16T193822.654.jpg)
