Ian Berry

If you want a practical example of why this fund is bullshit, I have one from the River Roding. The Roding has billions of litres of sewage entering it illegally every year & the EA has refused to prosecute a single one. Separately, our volunteer River charity has been campaigning to restore the channel of the river through Ilford golf course & create a wetland. A large river charity (who will remain nameless) told us they could help us get funding for the restoration: great, we thought. They were awarded tens of thousands of pounds from the water company fine fund & instead of actually restoring the river, they spent it (without consulting us) on staff time & consultant costs to produce a *report* about restoring the river. This report will then sit on a shelf somewhere and meanwhile the sewage still illegally enters the river & the river channel is still not restored. Our volunteers were forced to give up their free time & rely on local donations (a fraction of the amount spent on the report) to begin the restoration work as best we could ourselves. The system is utterly broken and our rivers are paying the price.

Photo of the Day: B2 Stealth Bomber flown by Sqn Ldr Nottie Zactly-Trew conducting Aerial Refuelling Safety Exercise from an A380 Refuelling Airplane over Nottingham (Lincolnshire) Photographed from a Canberra