Wye Catchment Conservators

@BBCNews @michaelgove I rather doubt that better design will change the mind of NIMBY councils. They wouldn’t want it if it was designed by Christopher Wren.

New housing needs more heart and soul, says Michael Gove bbc.in/3VmSsXL

Freed from the EU Water Framework Directive the Govt pushes back the date to clean up rivers and waterways in England by 36 years from 2027 (EU date) to 2063 (new UK date) bit.ly/3WYPrOP now that’s what I call taking back control!

Oh you! @stwater CEO deserves every penny of her £3.5M renumeration. Chances are she has contributed to Gav’s party to keep’em sweet!

Wow.

@Jockyfox @stwater @Feargal_Sharkey @DaveThroup @Wombourne_Dly @WombourneNature @ExpressandStar Gavin, you voted to legalise this, so why are you now complaining? You could have just given the EA the means and the instruction to enforce the law as it stood, which did make the sewage discharge into the worm brook illegal unless it was a major rain event

Back in 2021 Prof Peter Hammond exposed extensive illegal pollution by privatised water companies. Our government came to the rescue but not of the public and environment but to protect shareholders polluting for profit. @Feargal_Sharkey @guardian theguardian.com/environment/20…

🚨 BREAKING: Thames Water has seen their first-half profits soar to half a BILLION pounds - but the company also saw a surge in burst pipes and raw sewage discharges. Anyone else think their profits should be used to fix water infrastructure?

"England and Wales’s broken water system can be fixed – here’s what to do first." As @Dieter_Helm points out, it's not the legal system that is broken, it's the system of regulation that has collapsed and is failing customers and environment alike. theguardian.com/commentisfree/…

River pollution: New phosphate rules hit thousands of planned new homes bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-…

This weekend there was a thick line of mussel shells across the length of the huge beach at Seaton Carew. (sorry no pic) Where are @DefraGovUK & @EnvAgency? This is a terrible environmental scandal that the govt is keeping under wraps. #ExtinctionRebellion

@michaelgove Please do. Given all the rhetoric from Govt is now to be rid of European environmental regulations, and your latest water bill, legalised the current level of sewage discharges, your track record is of environmental destruction. Action only now will be believed.

We will sort

Halting the decline of natures by 2030 yet sod the rivers we will carry on discharging sewage into them for a further 28 years and this is classed as world leading, really? #sewage #environment #pollution #rivers

@Feargal_Sharkey literally nailed it. Absolutely superb superb speech by the no1 river campaigner. Certainly don't think we would be this far if it was not for his exceptional work. Well done.

@bettwsresident And it, base the fine on the value of the assets / turnover?

If the current system of fines based on income means that the agri sector can't be fined much, how about removing/reducing the tax payers subsidy of the business. It would crank it up the business risk register.

Last Friday morning water companies could only dump sewage into the environment during "exceptional situations". What you are seeing below would have been illegal. Today it's not. Government legalised it exactly 12,960 minutes ago.

Water firms have made off with £72bn of our money. @Ofwat confirms WCs have been paid all of the funding needed to fix this and yet government still want to load an extra £12 a year onto customers bills to pay for a service we never received. Scandal. dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1…

@FishLegal_ And 2/3rds of the Wye pollution is agricultural.

Lack of enforcement of farming regulations is deregulation via the back door….. theguardian.com/environment/20…

The scandal of agri pollution ⬇️ “In the Wye valley, home to one of Europe’s largest concentrations of intensive livestock production, Lancs Uni found there were 3,000 tonnes of excess phosphorus caused by agriculture seeping into the valley’s waterways” theguardian.com/environment/20…

Great read on the 2 men whose work can be credited with waking the EA and Ofwat from a deep sleep and forcing an investigation into sewage. And they’re very nice chaps too! ⁦@watervole3⁩ ⁦@ashsmith43⁩ theguardian.com/environment/20…