Responding to the Court of Appeal’s decision to uphold Thames Water’s £3bn rescue plan River Action’s CEO said:
“This decision is a disaster for Thames Water bill payers and the environment. Customers will now have to pay the price for the failing water company with about a third of their increased water bills paying for massive interest payments while our rivers remain choked with sewage.”
“Instead of allowing this interim plan to cause further financial and environmental damage, the Government must urgently seize the opportunity to place Thames Water into Special Administration before even more investor-centric restructuring plans are rolled out later this year. The current privatised system is a failed experiment, putting financial interests ahead of the needs of consumers and the health of our environment. Maintaining the status quo will only perpetuate this corporate takeover of the lifeblood of our economy and land. The government can and should step in now.
“The onus is now on the independent Water Commission to propose a viable alternative financial and governance model for the water industry that puts people and the planet first. This is not just about managing a crisis; it’s about fixing a broken system that has allowed private companies to profit at the expense of public well-being.”
ENDS
For media enquiries, contact Amy Fairman at media@riveractionuk.com
Responding to the High Court’s decision to approve Thames Water’s £3bn rescue plan— in a legal case in which neither DEFRA nor OFWAT opted to participate —River Action chair and founder Charles Watson said:
“This national scandal is a disaster for Thames Water bill payers and the environment. Instead of recognising now is the time for a special administration of Thames Water, the decision saddles customers with the responsibility for funding billions of junk-rated debt while its executives, investors and shareholders escape responsibility. Customers will now bear the brunt of massive interest payments through higher water bills, paying for corporate failure while our rivers remain choked with sewage.”
“We are extremely surprised that neither the Government nor the water regulator, Ofwat, chose to give evidence in court to support the public interest—leaving it instead to Charlie Maynard MP and campaigners Windrush Against Sewage Pollution to represent us.
“The Government cannot stand by and allow this reckless bailout to continue. It must step in, take back control of Thames Water, and put an end to years of environmental destruction and financial mismanagement – ahead of the even more expensive restructuring that Thames Water has planned.”
“The public’s outrage, as seen at the recent March for Clean Water, makes it clear—people have had enough. The Government must not only take back control of Thames Water but also pass the strongest possible Water Bill to ensure polluters pay and our rivers are properly safeguarded. The Government must recognise that clean rivers and healthy communities aren’t a barrier to economic growth—they enable it.”
It’s been an interesting start to 2025 as someone with my name on a current judicial review against a proposed new ‘chicken shed’ in Shropshire.….
First, both Steve Reed and Daniel Zeichner, perhaps panicked by angry farmers, say planning processes will be made easier for farm developments, so farmers can grow their businesses by putting up new ‘chicken sheds’. Then, Keir Starmer announces that judicial review (JR) rules will be amended to make it more difficult for NIMBYs to block and delay developments. Both announcements seem to be part of Starmer and Rachel Reeves’ growth agenda being pushed across all government departments.
To take the JR point first, I’m no legal expert but as I understand it you already have to prove there is a case to answer at the start of the process. It’s already a tough road to go down, with only a small proportion of cases being successful. So I’m not sure making it more difficult is necessary – maybe the announcement was just sending a pro development signal. With the case River Action and I are taking against Shropshire Council the judge agreed there was a case to answer on several grounds in our argument that Shropshire Council had inadequately assessed the environmental impacts of the proposed Intensive Poultry Unit (IPU).
It is unfortunate that citizens must take their local planning authority to court to stop more and more IPUs spreading across the landscape. But Shropshire Council has approved 64 applications for around 120 additional ‘chicken sheds’ housing over 5 million birds in the county in the last 10 years, taking the total chickens in the county to over 20 million at any one time. That’s 64 chickens per resident and maybe ten
times the amount of chicken poop than human poop.
Despite objections from local communities and businesses the Council continues to grant permissions without properly assessing the cumulative impacts of this industrial scale agriculture on air and water quality. That’s before you factor in risks such as antimicrobial resistance and bird flu. (Shropshire’s biggest IPU has had to cull two million birds in an outbreak this month.)
And that’s why it’s alarming to hear ministers suggesting government policies should support more ‘chicken sheds’ and make it easier to build them. There are many parts of the UK that are well beyond saturation point with intensive livestock farming. The River Wye catchment has proved the point and Shropshire, Lincolnshire, East Anglia, parts of Yorkshire and Northern Ireland are all on, or over, the brink of the same situation. Building more intensive livestock units will lock the UK even further into an industrial agriculture system, controlled by global multinational corporations, producing cheap but unhealthy food at the cost of nature, climate and communities.
And the crazy thing is we don’t even need more ‘chicken sheds’. The UK is already 90% self-sufficient in chicken and eggs. In fact, if we follow the advice of the Climate Change Committee and the National Food Strategy, we should be reducing meat consumption by 30%.
This type of agriculture is unsustainable and simply generates profits for supermarkets, fast food chains and global commodity giants. By all means make the planning system simpler and reduce the need for citizens to challenge planning decisions, but I would suggest doing it by developing clearer guidelines on, for example, how close IPUs can be built to neighbours, to watercourses and to other IPUs. In fact, why not introduce a moratorium on more IPUs in some areas? That would save everyone time and money!
If would be helpful if government policy focused on encouraging green growth and the types of farming that produce healthy food, boost local economies and help address our climate and nature crises.
– Dr Alison Caffyn, River Action Advisory Board member
As Thames Water’s top brass meet with the Greater London Authority to explore ways to make the capital’s waterways swimmable, the failing utility is simultaneously seeking High Court approval for a £3 billion rescue plan—prompting campaigners to demand that the Government take back control of the water company.
They warn that “a swimmable Thames is a pipe dream with Thames Water in tatters” and reveal dangerously high levels of E. coli were detected last week near to the site of today’s London Assembly meeting, underscoring the urgent need for accountability and action.
Giving evidence at today’s public hearing is CEO of River Action James Wallace. He says, “We applaud the Mayor of London for his bold and commendable actions aimed at making London’s waterways swimmable. His commitment to ensuring cleaner, healthier waterways for Londoners demonstrates strong leadership that will benefit generations to come. We have seen him take a firm stand against corporate interests pushing for a third runway at Heathrow due to air pollution concerns—now we need him to double down on tackling the water pollution crisis by standing up to yet more corporate polluters.
“Let’s be clear, until Thames Water is held accountable as the main polluter of the River Thames and made to invest in clearing up the mess of decades of profiteering and polluting, nothing will change and the Mayor’s ambition will remain a pipedream.
“As evidenced by soaring levels of debt and sky high interest rates, the privatisation experiment has failed. The only solution is for the Government to take back ownership of Thames Water and write off the bad debt that stains customer bills and the river. We call upon the Mayor of London and the Greater London Authority to pressure the Government to put Thames Water in special administration and restructure its finances prioritising the people and the environment, not private profit.”
Revealed: 2025 sewage discharges and E.coli testing on the Thames
Since the start of 2025, Thames Water has dumped at least 784 hours and 58 minutes of sewage directly into the Thames, from its source at Cricklade to its mouth at Long Reach—wreaking havoc on vital ecosystems and endangering public health.
Now campaigners can reveal that last week water quality testing by River Action citizen scientists using a Fluidion World Health Organization WHO accredited verified E.Coli analyser, found dangerously high levels of pollution from sewage pollution along the River Thames at Greenwich near to today’s Assembly meeting. Between January 27 and January 31, River Action conducted eight water quality tests and found levels of E.coli up to 15 times higher than the Environment Agency considers the minimum acceptable level for designated bathing waters. The levels found were far in excess of what is considered ‘safe’ by the environmental regulator.
Protest led by Friends of the Thames Friends of the Thames, a newly formed not-for-profit seed-funded by River Action and directed by clean river advocate Laura Reineke, today leads a protest outside of the public hearing on making the Thames a swimmable river.
From 9am, paddlers, swimmers, rowers and community groups will demand a cleaner, healthier capital river for all; pointing the finger at Thames Water for persistent and often illegal discharges of sewage that pose a serious threat to human health, water security and wildlife.
Laura Reineke, co-founder of Friends of the Thames, said:“The Thames is more than just a river; it is an iconic symbol of our country and provides the water that sustains our capital’s economy. Its persistent pollution is unacceptable, and Friends of the Thames is here to ensure that action is taken, and promises are kept. We as a country have become disconnected from our nature and countryside; I’d love to see all communities reconnect with the Thames, and foster a love for her that flows through generations to come.
“We will present Thames Water’s representative with a vial of river water—a stark reminder that their duty is to protect the Thames, a living, breathing river they are suffocating with raw sewage.”Wildlife biologist and broadcaster Liz Bonnin added, “I join River Action in calling for the Mayor of London to hold Thames Water to account for decades of unchecked pollution in the name of profit, devastating this important riverine ecosystem and threatening public health. The company’s plans to increase customer bills, despite paying out £158.3 million in dividends last year alone, speaks volumes. We must make the polluter pay and transform the industry so that it serves people and the planet, as it always should have.”
ENDS
Notes to editor
Between January 27 and January 31, River Action conducted 8 tests on the River Thames at Drawdock Slipway, Greenwich. Tests results indicate an average of 8,233 E.coli colony forming units (CFU) per 100ml of water. To meet bathing water quality standards, this level should be below 900 CFU per 100ml to meet the lowest water quality deemed safe for swimming. Our highest recorded spike reached 15,000 CFU, more than fifteen times the acceptable limit.
Dedicated to uniting communities along the Thames, Friends of the Thames will advocate for 1) restoration; 2) hold polluters accountable; 3) build a citizen science network to monitor water quality from source to sea.
Friends of the Thames will connect communities from source to sea and closely monitor the Mayor of London’s commitment to delivering on promises to clean up the capital’s lifeblood river. The grassroots campaign group will build alliances with river users across the Thames catchment, spanning urban areas and the commuter belt. It will bring together existing citizen scientists and data and establish a network of new citizen scientists to fill in any gaps from the source of the nation’s capital river in Gloucestershire to the Thames Estuary at Southend-on-Sea.
Friends of the Thames will reach out to councils across the Thames catchment area, inviting them to sign a Rights of the River Thames embedding the rights of the Thames as a valuable and irreplaceable ecosystem, and giving the river a voice. This pledge will emphasise the shared responsibility of communities, authorities, and corporations to protect the nation’s capital river for future generations, and begin the process of changing the way we interact with the river, from using and over managing her, to a living, breathing artery that feeds us and the nature that calls her home.
For more information, please contact Laura Reineke friendsofthethames@gmail.com, 07989396210 .
High-resolution images and interviews are available upon request.
A coalition of the concerned are calling on everyone in the country angry at the state of water to join us to demand that our new government takes urgent action to address the UK’s alarming and dangerous water pollution crisis by marching through Central London on Sunday 3rd November.
The March for Clean Water, which is timed to mark the end of the first 100 days of the new government, when environmental campaigners will be watching closely for financial commitments to protect the environment, will involve scores of participating groups and well-known personalities, including river campaigner Feargal Sharkey.
They invite the public to join in one simple demand of Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer: to take immediate and decisive action to end the poisoning of our rivers,lakes and seas by the lethal cocktail of raw sewage, agricultural waste and other chemical pollutants, that over recent years have been allowed to leave most of our waterways so filthy that they present major risks to human health and untold damage to nature.
This must include:
a plan to address the continuous illegal dumping of raw sewage by the water companies;
a full set of solutions to end all other major sources of water pollution;
the reform of our failed regulatory system, including Ofwat and the Environment Agency, so the law can be effectively enforced against polluters
We urge everyone who cares about clean water to unite and march through central London to Parliament Square on Sunday 3rd November. The march is inclusive, accessible, step free and everyone is welcome to join. Marchers are encouraged to wear blue to symbolise clean water; to let their creativity run free and bring noise, placards, puppets, posters, banners, costumes, marching bands and musical instruments.
Whilst the introduction of a Water Bill in the King’s Speech on 17th July is welcome, the proposed initiatives revealed so far to improve water quality are not nearly extensive enough to address the scale of the UK’s water pollution crisis. It is therefore essential that this prospective legislation includes a comprehensive set of measures to end all causes of water pollution and to do so now.
The March for Clean Water is coordinated by River Action and Feargal Sharkey in close collaboration with Surfers Against Sewage and major charities and governing bodies including the Clean Water Sports Alliance, British Rowing, British Canoeing, Greenpeace, RSPB, The Women’s Institute, The Wildlife Trusts, Angling Trust, SOS Whitstable, Wildlife and Countryside Link, The Rivers Trust, Ilkley Clean River Group, Soil Association, Windrush Against Sewage Pollution and many local community groups from across the country.
Quote from River Campaigner Feargal Sharkey:
“We call on the Government to end the environmental devastation being inflicted upon our rivers, lakes and seas. It stops here, it stops today, it stops now. End pollution, end polluting for profit. Government must order an urgent root and branch review of the failed oversight and regulation of the water industry. It is now time to hold to account those industries that for too long now have been allowed to knowingly and wantonly pollute our waters driven by nothing more than profit and greed. We call on everyone in the country who is concerned or angry at the state of our waters to join us and march.”
Quote from Chair and Founder of River Action, Charles Watson:
“The initial noises coming out of our new government regarding cleaning up our filthy waterways, whilst encouraging, do not nearly go far enough to deal with the scale of the problem they have inherited. Nothing short of wholescale reform of our failed regulatory system and comprehensive strategies to address all major sources of pollution, including sewage discharges and agricultural run-off, will suffice. On the 3rd November the public will make this point very clear to Sir Keir Starmer in no uncertain terms.”
Background to the UK’s water pollution crisis can be found in this hard-hitting short film narrated by Stephen Fry.
For more information about attending the March for Clean Water visit marchforcleanwater.org
ENDS
For media interviews call Ian at River Action on 07377 547 362 or email media@riveractionuk.com
Notes to editors The March for Clean Water is on Sunday 3rd November. It will be a legal, peaceful, family-friendly and inclusive demonstration to send a simple message to the newly elected Labour Government: it is your job to end the poisoning of our rivers, lakes and seas. The march is planned to assemble at a central London location and will end at Parliament Square. Timings will be confirmed in the run up to the event.
River Action is an environmental charity on a mission to rescue Britain’s rivers from the deluge of pollution that has left the majority of our waterways in a severely degraded ecological condition. Our campaigns to date have focussed on tackling the severe environmental crises created by both sewage and agricultural pollution.
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.
“From kicking off the year as an ambitious team of four, River Action has quickly grown into an independent organisation of twelve passionate campaigners – all of whom are driven with an unquenchable thirst to protect and restore Britain’s rivers.
“Since its inception, River Action has been focused on targeting the polluting agri-industries and the regulatory bodies responsible for enforcing existing environmental laws. This year, we won a landmark court ruling to sue the Environment Agency for failing to protect the River Wye; we filed complaints against the Red Tractor’s misleading marketing claims and we achieved a public commitment from Avara Foods to ensure their supply chain no longer contributes to excess phosphate in the Wye by 2025.
“In the summer, River Action launched the Charter for Rivers (and the Charter’s hugely popular accompanying petition) in parliament. Shortly after we attended major political party conferences and convened key discussions to maintain pressure and ensure that healthy rivers are a top voting priority ahead of the upcoming general election.
“All the while, River Action remains steadfastly committed to supporting community groups to stand up for their rivers. We have had a very successful twelve months empowering local community groups and working with citizen scientists, fellow activists and sporting heroes to hold water companies and polluting industries to account.
“We would like to thank all our supporters, donors, partners, advisors and communities for your incredible support. Our combined impact through key public and community initiatives, national media coverage and petition submission to No 10 are sending the message that it’s high time current and future governments commit to resolving the freshwater emergency before it’s too late.”
Molly Allen, River Action’s Communication’s Coordinator
River Action has written to the newly appointed Secretary of State for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs seeking urgent clarification on when DEFRA will publish its promised emergency plan to save the River Wye from ecological collapse.
Minister Steve Barclay’s predecessor, Thérèse Coffey, undertook to publish an action plan by the end autumn this year. But with days to go before the start of winter, there are growing concerns that the plan will fail to materialise, leaving the Wye facing an existential crisis with no effective mitigation strategy in place.
Founder and Chairman of River Action UK Charles Watson says, “We have written to Steve Barclay, our seventh Environment Minister in seven years, seeking urgent clarification of the whereabouts of the Government’s plan to act regarding the ecological collapse of the River Wye.
“His predecessor promised the plan by autumn this year, meaning Mr Barclay has just two weeks to make good this commitment. It would be appalling if such a critically important environmental policy action was to disappear between the cracks of DEFRA’s never-ending game of musical chairs.
“DEFRA must act now. With Natural England now having recently downgraded the environmental status of the river to “unfavourable-declining”, the situation on the Wye has reached a state of emergency, with little time left to save the river from comprehensive ecological collapse.”
Intensive poultry industry a major cause of the Wye crisis
Industrialised chicken production throughout the Wye region has now been established as one of the principal causes of the severe pollution of the river. Urgent and immediate action is now needed to end the destructive application of chicken manure across the soils of the river catchment, from where it constantly leaches into the watercourse.
Mr Watson says, “The soils of the Wye are now significantly oversaturated with phosphorus, a prime source of which originates from the continual spreading of the manure originating from the 25 million chickens that are intensively reared across the catchment. The run off of these nutrients, often exacerbated by unsustainable agricultural practices such as winter maize cropping, is the prime cause of the devastating algal blooms that are now witnessed along the length of the river system during the summer months.
“This severe ecological collapse of the iconic River Wye is one of the great environmental scandals of our times.
“The sickening and avoidable tragedy is that this situation could have been seriously mitigated had the Environment Agency properly enforced existing environmental regulations to prevent the excess application of animal waste on land that was already oversaturated with nutrients.”
High Court legal challenge against the Environment Agency
On 28th February 2024, River Action’s Judicial Review hearing will be heard in the High Court in Cardiff, where it will claim that both The Environment Agency and DEFRA have acted unlawfully in failing to adequately protect the River Wye from agricultural pollution.
On Thursday 28th September, more than 40 of the UK’s conservation organisations came together to protest at the Government’s failure to address the deepening crisis in nature, laid bare in the devastating State of Nature Report.
Organised by wildlife TV presenter and conservationist Chris Packham, the demonstrations saw the UK’s leading conservation and wildlife charities, scientists, ecologists and wildlife experts unite in protest outside DEFRA offices to demand the UK Government to take more action for nature.
The newly-formed ‘Restore Nature Now’ movement states: “We are birdwatchers, ramblers, ecologists, pond dippers, river-swimmers, ramblers, no-mow-mayers, anglers, scientists, butterfly counters, spring-watchers, gardeners, rewilders, conservationists. We are ordinary people taking action in extraordinary times”.
Chris Packham said:
“This is beyond an ‘Attack on Nature’ in the UK. Our wildlife is being annihilated. Our wild places and wildlife are not ‘dying’- they are being killed. Those responsible for killing nature are getting away with it. Those responsible for protecting nature are failing. We are taking our demand ‘Restore Nature Now’ direct to the government department decision-makers responsible for failing nature in this country.”
River Action’s CEO, James Wallace, said:
“Our river ecosystems are on the brink of collapse, polluted by sewage, manure, chemicals and plastics. On the current trajectory, only 4% will be in good ecological condition by 2027, missing our pre Brexit targets of 100%. Globally rare chalk streams are smothered in algal sludge, preventing rare species like brown trout from reproducing. Rivers like the Wye have turned into filthy ditches for factory farms, while the wildlife in the River Thames is snuffed out by sewage.
“The dreadful state of the UK’s nature is an international disgrace and an existential risk to our economy. Without hedgerow habitats we have no insects. Without pollinators we have no food. Without healthy rivers we have no drinking water. And without water we have no industry, shops or hospitals. With the next election looming, we implore all parties and voters to back policies that will Restore Nature Now!”
River Action launches an urgent public call for a new ‘Plan To Save The Wye’.
The very recent rapid ecological collapse of the Wye and its tributaries has been widely linked to the rapid growth of the intensive poultry industry across the river catchment. It is estimated that in the last five years the number of chickens being reared in intensive livestock production units in the Wye catchment has doubled to over 20 million birds.
According to evidence submitted to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee (EAC) by Lancaster University’s RePhoKUs Unit, this has resulted in the Wye’s soils now carrying an unacceptable surplus 60% higher than the national average phosphate (P) levels. The prime cause of this was cited to be the hundreds of thousands of tons of chicken manure that is spread each year across the catchment, adding to the existing burden of manure already produced by sheep and cattle. With much of the resulting nutrients ultimately running off into watercourses, the EAC concluded in its report on Water Quality in Rivers (published on January 13th) that “Intensive livestock and poultry farming appears to be putting enormous pressure on particular catchments, such as those feeding the river Wye”.The river’s recent nutrient fed-annual algal blooms are now estimated to have killed 95% of the rivers previously abundant water-crowfoot vegetation.
Today’s call from River Action states that in order to save the river and its tributaries from irreversible environmental damage caused by these intensive agricultural practices, a mandatory catchment-wide Nutrient Management Plan must be implemented with immediate effect.
River Action states that the new plan must be enforced on a catchment-wide basis with the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales working in close cross-border collaboration and that, as a minimum, the key actions of the plan must comprise:
A planning moratorium on the construction of new (or expansion of existing) intensive livestock production units (poultry, pigs and Bovine), and on the construction of any new anaerobic digestors (ADs) unless their digestate outputs are nutrient-neutral.
A requirement for all Intensive Poultry Units (IPUs) within the Wye catchment to have approved by the end of 2022 a Manure Management Plan (MMP), to be fully implemented by the end of 2023, whereby all chicken litter is exported out of the catchment to those locations in the UK which have P deficits, and thus currently rely on imported synthetic phosphate fertilisers.
A requirement for all free-range egg producing IPUs to have a Nutrient Runoff Mitigation Plan (NRMP) approved by the end of 2022, to be implemented by the end of 2023, whereby water courses are protected from nutrient run-off from chicken ranges by nature-based solutions.
A significant reduction in ‘number of bird’ thresholds for IPUs coming within the permitting jurisdictions of the EA and NRW to be implemented over the next five years on a progressive sliding scale, thus bringing medium and smaller sized IPUs within the scope of environmental regulations.
A requirement for all watercourses within the Wye catchment to be protected by continuous river buffers of a minimum of 10 metres, providing a nature-based separation zone between all agricultural activities and running water.
The allocation of additional funding by the UK and Welsh Governments to the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales to a) conduct inspections of all IPUs and ADs to ensure MMPs and NRMPs are approved and implement, and b) conduct an annual audit to ensure they are adhering to the provisions of their respective MMPs and NRMPs.
Any non-compliance to result in the closure of the IPU or AD in question until compliance is demonstrated and reapproval obtained.
Today’s announcement follows extensive campaigning by River Action since its February 2021 launch for two of the UK’s leading egg and chicken meat producers – Noble Foods and Avara Foods – to take action to reduce the contribution of their supply chains to the pollution of the River Wye. The campaign still awaits clear commitments from both companies. River Action also recently launched a crowdfunder which has raised over £22,000 to support vital citizen science monitoring of pollution on the Wye and its tributaries.
Additionally, River Action has drawn attention on numerous occasions to the complete collapse of environmental protection right across the UK, and its contribution to the continuing pollution scandal. A petition launched by the group in June 2021, calling for a doubling of the environmental protection budgets of the Environment Agency and Natural Resources Wales, has attracted over 55,000 signatures.
Charles Watson, Founder and Chairman of River Action said:
“ The River Wye is one of Great Britain’s most iconic rivers. The speed and scale of its environmental collapse is a national scandal, as highlighted in the recent Environmental Audit Committee’s report, and one which is indicative of this country’s total neglect of our freshwater environments. With many now fearing the river has just a few years left before it is irreparably damaged, it is time for all parties to accept that urgent action is needed. While the initiatives of a number of local farmers to reduce phosphate emissions are to be applauded, only a comprehensive catchment-wide plan, backed by uncompromising regulatory enforcement will save the river. ”
James Hitchcock, CEO, Radnorshire Wildlife Trust said:
“ Despite the fact that even the major poultry producers are now openly accepting their contribution to the pollution of the Wye, there is still no joined-up plan to solve the issues. There is now no time left for further endless talks about voluntary, consensus-led self-regulation. The wildlife of the River Wye is slipping away. A catchment-wide plan involving scientists, land managers, industry leaders and conservationists, and managed by better resourced Welsh and English environmental protection agencies is the only way to save our river. ”
Feargal Sharkey, River Action Advisory Board member said:
“ I wholeheartedly commend the plan being launched today by River Action. This critically important initiative must be implemented with immediate effect – no ifs, no buts. Quite frankly, it’s a scandal that the actions being put forward today were not implemented by the EA and Natural Resources Wales when the nutrient crisis of the river first manifested itself. ”
