Today the Environment Agency announces that it completed 10,000 health checks on the water network in the last year and uncovered over 3,000 permit condition breaches. Whilst the increased oversight is a step in the right direction, the level of illegal activity it revealed is not. As such, Wildlife and Countryside Link, the biggest environmental coalition in England, has come together with 66 other nature charities to demand Clean Water Now in the upcoming Water Bill.
Richard Benwell, Chief Executive of Wildlife and Countryside Link, says:
“It's good that inspection numbers have doubled, but the scale of lawbreaking is alarming. Thousands of breaches in a single year show that pollution is business as usual for water companies.
“Enforcement remains too slow and weak. Without swift penalties and meaningful consequences, polluters will continue to treat fines as a normal cost of doing business while rivers, wildlife and public health pay the price. When the new water regulator is set up, it must be empowered to act decisively – inspecting more assets, including the condition of nature on company land, and handing down rapid, significant penalties, including criminal sanctions where needed.
“Clean water and a healthy environment are not luxuries, they’re basic rights. The upcoming Water Bill must deliver a system that finally holds polluters to account and restores England’s rivers, lakes, and seas to health.”
Read more now in our report, Clean Water Now.
Latest Press Releases