Environment Agency Urged Not to Weaken River Standards

Campaigners have urged the Environment Agency not to loosen rules which are pivotal in the cleaning-up of England’s rivers.

Leading wildlife and countryside campaigners have written to the chief executive of the Environment Agency, Sir James Bevan, after he made a speech suggesting that the UK weaken its rules. He argued that the UK no longer had to abide by the EU’s water framework directive, now that the country has left the EU.

The signatories say that loosening these regulations would be a backward step. They believe more investment is needed so that 75% of English rivers can be rated as ‘good’ by 2027. At present, only 14% of rivers are judged as being ‘good’.

Bevan recently supported ‘thoughtful reform’ of the directive in a speech to business leaders, also pushing for the scrapping of the ‘one-out-all-out’ rule. The rule currently ensures that rivers cannot be declared to be in good health unless they pass four stringent tests.

Instead, Bevan wants the directive to be ‘reformed’ so that rivers can be judged on a single criterion instead of all four - an implementation that he claims would give ‘even better outcomes’.

The letter from the environmental NGOs says:  “In light of growing public concern about water pollution, over-abstraction of sensitive rivers and streams, and serious ongoing shortcomings in water quality, any weakening of water framework standards would be a backward step.

“The water environment is a system, and all parts of that system need to be in good working order for it to operate effectively. That principle remains true and the clarity of the ‘one-out-all-out’ rule should not be abandoned.”

The letter accepts that the EU directive’s pass or fail test doesn’t allow for improvements in river quality to be acknowledged, but argues that a new metric should be introduced for ‘elements improved’ instead of completely axing the one-out-all-out rule.

In response, the Environment Agency said: “We welcome the debate on how to improve environmental regulation now that we have left the EU. We agree with the NGOs that the aim should be to deliver even better outcomes for our rivers, lakes and coastal waters, and that we should consider amending the water framework directive to achieve that.

“As [Bevan] said in his speech, ‘if changing the law will allow us to regulate better and achieve higher environmental standards, we should always be open to that’.”